Plans extraordinary div in Q4 (Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Copenhagen, 19 Jul - The Danish lender Danske Bank said that in the first half its net profit rose to 11.468 billion crowns from 10.178 billion a year earlier as total income grew to 28.011 billion from 25.586 billion.

Meanwhile, operating expenses grew at slower pace, rising to 12.818 billion crowns from 12.642 billion.

The board approved an interim dividend of 7.5 crowns per share, corresponding to 56% of net profit for the period.

Regarding capital distribution for 2025 and beyond, Danske Bank will return to annual dividend payments.

At the end of June, Danske Bank had bought back around 10.7 million shares for a total purchase amount of 2.2 billion crowns of the planned 5.5 billion share buyback programme.

During the fourth quarter of 2024, the bank intends to distribute the released capital from the exit of its Norwegian personal customer business as an extraordinary dividend payment once the sale to Nordea has closed. The released capital is expected to amount to approximately 5.5 billion crowns, it noted.

"Finally, it is the intention of the board of directors to distribute the full remaining net profit for the full-year of 2024 in 2025," Danske Bank said.

On June 26, the revised the outlook for 2024 upwards to a net profit in the range of 21-23 billion crowns from 20-22 billion.

"The profit upgrade follows our continually strong credit quality and reversals of impairment charges for the second quarter of 2024," it added.

The bank expects full-year loan impairment charges to be up to 0.6 billion crowns.

"For the financial targets for 2026, we maintain our assumption for loan impairment charges of approximately 8 basis points through the cycle," it added.

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(RADIOCOR) 19-07-24 09:28:39 (0176) 5 NNNN