Macquarie sees H2 in line with H1, strong cash

SYDNEY Feb 9 (Reuters) - Macquarie Group (MQG.AX), Australia's top investment bank, on Tuesday forecast second-half profit roughly in line with the first half and reported a strong balance sheet with around US$4 billion in excess capital.

Macquarie, dubbed the 'millionaire factory', gave no specific guidance for the year ending March 31 in its third-quarter trading update. StarMine smart estimates estimates net profit of A$1.07 billion ($925.6 million) for 2009/10. In the first half, the bank reported net profit of A$479 million.

Analysts are not expecting much of a surprise in 2009/10 but are factoring in a strong 2010/11 on full contributions from acquisitions and resurgent merger and acquisition markets. (Reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram; Editing by Mark Bendeich)