Vietnam's Sacombank profit jumps on loan growth

HANOI (Reuters) - Sacombank STB.HM, Vietnam's sixth-largest lender, said its first-quarter gross profit jumped 44 percent from a year ago to 435 billion dong ($27.3 million) as loans soared 141 percent.

Total assets of the Ho Chi Minh City-based bank surged 135 percent at the end of March from a year earlier to 75.2 trillion dong ($4.7 billion), the bank said in a statement on Tuesday.

It said Vietnamese banks' business in the first months of the year had been affected by a slowing world economy.

However, the bank, also known as Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Bank, was able to raise 65.46 trillion dong in deposits during the first quarter of this year, up 133 percent from a year ago period, of which it lent 41.67 trillion dong.

Loan growth in the first quarter is way above the 30-percent annual credit growth target the central bank planned to keep for all the banks in the country this year, after loans jumped 54 percent last year, according to World Bank figures.

Shares in Sacombank were trading up 700 dong, or 1.8 percent, at 39,700 dong at 0134 GMT on Tuesday.

Sacombank expects a 38 percent rise in gross profit this year to 2 trillion dong and lending growth of 34 percent, slower than last year's expansion as the central bank has taken steps to tighten money supply to fight double-digit inflation.

Last year Sacombank's gross profit jumped 167 percent, its assets also soared 156 percent and loans jumped 136 percent.

The World Bank's International Finance Corp, Dragon Capital and ANZ Bank (ANZ.AX) together own 30 percent of Sacombank, the ceiling for foreign ownership of listed banks in Vietnam.

($1=15,958 dong)

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Jan Dahinten)