Society Lifts Assets

Newcastle Herald

Saturday October 25, 2008

GREG WENDT BUSINESS EDITOR

NEWCASTLE Permanent defied a challenging operating environment to post a net profit after tax of $35.3 million last financial year, the chairman, Michael Slater, said yesterday.

Mr Slater said the result represented a solid financial performance at a time when the Newcastle Permanent and all Australian financial institutions were affected by increases in wholesale and retail borrowing costs.

The profit result, announced at yesterday's annual general meeting, was slightly down on the previous financial year's record result of $36.1 million.

Mr Slater said Newcastle Permanent was well funded and soundly capitalised.

"Newcastle Permanent is well placed to deal with the current financial difficulties in financial markets, even without the recent announcement from the Federal Government to guarantee the deposits of all banks, building societies and credit unions," he said.

Chief executive officer Terry Millett said although the profit was less than last year's record, Newcastle Permanent's total assets had grown by 9.3 per cent to $6.3 billion.

"Home lending assets improved 7 per cent over the year and there was very solid growth in retail deposits, which were up by 17 per cent," Mr Millett said.

Newcastle Permanent was named Money magazine's Building Society of the Year for the second year running and received the Australian Financial Review Smart Investor Blue Ribbon Award for Building Society of the Year.

Mr Millett said another highlight of the year was opening new branches at Rutherford, Tamworth, Armidale, Lismore and Ballina.

"We have also invested in providing contemporary and functional banking facilities for all our members and expanded our ATM [automatic teller machine] network to 95 locations," he said.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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