Commercial Bank of Qatar net profit dips 5.6%

DOHA/DUBAI: Commercial Bank of Qatar, the Gulf Arab state's second-largest lender by assets, said on Tuesday its second-quarter net profit dropped 5.6 percent as the bank provisioned against a local real estate loan.
The bank made a net profit of 518 million riyals ($142.3 million) in the second quarter, it said in a bourse filing. This compared with 545.7 million riyals last year.
The figure missed the average forecast of analysts, who had expected a quarterly profit of 530.6 million riyals, according to a Reuters poll.
Impairments in the first six months of 2013 jumped to 194 million riyals from 32 million riyals in the corresponding period of 2012, with the bank attributing the rise to a provision against a domestic real estate loan.
CBQ confirmed last week it had received regulatory approvals to buy a 70.8 percent stake in Turkish lender Alternatifbank.
Total assets increased 16 percent to 85.4 billion riyals at the end of June, the statement said.
Loans and advances grew 18 percent to 52 billion riyals at the end of June, compared to the same point last year, with lending growth generated mainly in the services, commercial, contracting and real estate sectors across both the wholesale and retail businesses.
Last month Qatar Exchange said CBQ and Qatar Islamic Bank have asked the bourse to increase the number of their shares available to foreign investors to 25 percent of their market capitalization, with the changes expected to be implemented in six to nine months. Foreign investors can now own up to 25 percent of the banks' free float shares.
Banks in Qatar are expected to benefit from heavy state spending on infrastructure as the world's fastest growing economy prepares to host the 2022 World Cup.