CIMB Niaga's Bottomline To Significantly Improve In Q2, Says Nazir

KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 (Bernama) -- CIMB Holdings Bhd expects the bottomline of CIMB Niaga, the group's operations in Indonesia, to significantly improve in the second quarter (Q2). Chairman Nazir Razak said the performance would be backed by CIMB Niaga's promising topline, including revenue, loan growth, net interest margin and others. "I estimate that the performance will be better in Q2, as the provisioning will still be elevated and then significantly improve in the second half of 2015," he told reporters after the group's annual general meeting here Tuesday. Going forward, chief executive, Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, said the group's loan growth target for this year would be 10 per cent, supported by up to nine per cent growth from the Malaysian operations. He said the group's operations in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand would likely contribute a teen double-digit loan growth to the group's overall performance this year. In line with the group's Target 2018 initiative, which aimed to have a strong presence in all ASEAN countries by 2018, Zafrul said CIMB was looking at applying for a licence to operate in the Philippines, one out of two countries that it has yet have presence. "The other ASEAN country is Vietnam. We are looking at it currently and have applied for a licence to apply there. "By 2018, we are confident we can have presence in all markets in ASEAN," he said. -- BERNAMA