Dutch NIBC first-half profit soars, no sale seen

* H1 profit 42 mln euros vs. 15 mln last year

* Lower impairments offset trading, dividend declines * CEO says private equity owners remain happy with status

AMSTERDAM, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Dutch merchant bank NIBC [NIBCAP.UL] on Tuesday said net income nearly tripled in the first half of the year, as a sharp decline in impairments offset falling dividend and trading income.

The bank's chief executive also said its private equity owners remain happy with its strategy and continue to fully support it, two-and-a-half years after the planned sale of NIBC to a now-failed competitor fell through.

NIBC posted a profit of 42 million euros ($53.1 million), compared with a year-ago profit of 15 million.

Operating income fell more than 10 percent to 151 million euros, as the bank posted a steep drop in trading income and smaller declines in fee and commission income and dividend income. Operating expenses also rose slightly.

But impairments fell by almost two-thirds, bolstering results. Net interest income also more than doubled, as the bank enjoyed a lower cost of funds and originated more loans.

"I think we have seen on the interest (income) a steady incline in the last 18 months and we expect that to continue in the second half of the year," Chief Financial Officer Kees van Dijkhuizen said on a conference call with reporters.

Chief Executive Jeroen Drost added that the level of impairments in the first half of the year was "a good predictor" for the second half.

NIBC, whose predecessor was founded by the Dutch government in 1945 as a post-war reconstruction bank called the Society for the Financing of the National Recovery, was listed in 1986.

It was taken private in 1999 by two local pension funds and sold again in 2005 to a consortium led by the private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co.

The Flowers consortium has failed twice in its efforts to sell NIBC, first in an IPO that was withdrawn in 2007 and then in a sale to Iceland's Kaupthing that was called off in early 2008 -- a few months before Kaupthing collapsed.

"We continue to have the full support of the shareholders that we've had in the last couple of years," Drost said, declining further comment on their strategic plans. (Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by David Cowell) ($1=.7910 Euro)