China Everbright Bank's net profit more than doubled in the first half with improving revenue structure.

Beijing-based Everbright's first half profit added 158.2 percent to 6.47 billion yuan (US$948.7 million), Financial News, an affiliate of the People's Bank of China, reported yesterday.

The bank's fee-based income increased 54 percent to 1.19 billion yuan, accounting for 9.55 percent of its operational income, an increase of 0.76 percentage points.

The bank's operational profits increased 56.5 percent to 6.63 billion yuan.

The bank's assets quality improved after disposing of bad assets in the first half. Its non-performing loan decreased by 10.22 billion yuan to 8.44 billion yuan. The bad loan ratio dropped 2.63 percentage points to 1.85 percent as of June 30.

The bank's capital adequacy ratio jumped 1.91 percentage points to 9.01 percent, higher than the regulatory minimum of 8 percent.

The bank received government bailouts, shed bad assets and reformed its structure to pave the way for its listing plan.

The bank received a 20-billion yuan bailout from China's Central Huijin Investment Co to smooth its listing.

Everbright Bank in April sold non-performing assets with a face value of 14 billion yuan for 1.64 billion yuan.

The bank's outstanding deposits grew 14.1 percent to 628.8 billion yuan. Its outstanding loans expanded 9.3 percent to 456.9 billion yuan by the end of June.

Tang Shuangning, chairman of the bank, said earlier that the bank was poised for listing as early as this summer.

The government is pushing Everbright's restructure including sending a senior former regulator to the group.

Tang was former deputy head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission before taking the post at China Everbright Bank.

(Shanghai Daily July 23, 2008)