Sing Investments & Finance saw earnings surge some 128% to $18.3 million for the 1HFY2021 ended June, from earnings of $8.0 million in the corresponding period the year before.
Net interest income and hiring charges rose 32.7% y-o-y to $29.2 million due to the lower funding costs in the current low interest environment.
Net interest margin rose by 58 basis points to 2.15%.
Interest income and hiring charges fell 13.8% y-o-y to $37.1 million due to a broad decline in loans and advances and others, cash and bank deposits at amortised cost as well as Singapore Government Securities and MAS bills measured at FVOCI.
See also: MAS calls on Hong Leong Finance, Singapura Finance, Sing Investments to cut dividends too
Interest expense fell 62.5% y-o-y to $7.9 million.
Non-interest income fell by 17.1% y-o-y to $3.5 million mainly due to lesser Covid-19-related grants received from the Singapore government.
Total operating expenses fell 2.4% y-o-y to $13.2 million, which resulted in a sharp reduction in cost-to-income ratio to 40.3% for the period under review as compared with 51.5% in the same period a year ago.
Earnings per share (EPS) for the 1HFY2021 stood at 23.27 cents, from the 10.21 cents in the 1HFY2020.
As at June 30, the group’s capital adequacy ratio fell 2.2% to 15.1%, from 16.3% as at Dec 31, 2020. This was due to the dividend payout made during the 2QFY2021 for the FY2020.
As at end June, cash and cash equivalents stood at $316.2 million.
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Shares in Sing Investments & Finance closed 1 cent lower or 0.7% down at $1.44 on July 27.
Photo: Stock photo
