Novo Banco with losses of 1.059 billion euros

Novo Banco announced on Friday losses of 1.059 billion euros. In 2018, the losses were 1.412 billion.

1.236 billion in losses on BES’s legacy, while the good part of the bank (recurring activity) obtained a gain of 177.6 million euros.

The bank says it “recorded losses related to the restructuring and deleveraging process of non-productive assets, namely the Sertorius, Albatros and NATA II projects, and the sale process of GNB Vida.”

In view of this result, the bank will ask the Resolution Fund, which holds 25% of the institution, for a further 1.037 billion euros, under the contingent capital mechanism agreed in 2017.

On the operational side, the financial margin rose by almost 20% to 540.6 million euros, with fees rising by 3.3%. With this, commercial banking income increased by 12.5% to 864.1 million euros.

On the balance sheet side, loans to customers rose 1.7% to 25.15 billion euros, while deposits rose 1% to 28.4 billion euros.

Last year was a year of cleaning the balance sheet. The bad debt ratio halved: it was 22.4% in 2018 and fell to 11.8% at the end of 2019. This was a 3.3 billion euros reduction.