Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) reported a jump in fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday (May 15), beating expectations as it saw robust business overseas and solid demand at home, and it forecast higher profit in the current financial year.
SMFG also said it would buy back up to 1.1 per cent of its own shares, worth 100 billion yen (S$863.9 million), and that it would carry out a 3-for-1 stock split for shareholders as of Sept 30.
For the January-March fourth quarter, Japan’s second-largest bank said group net profit grew more than four times to 170 billion yen, compared with the 150 billion yen implied by the LSEG consensus estimate for the full year.
SMFG is the first of Japan’s three megabanks to report results on Wednesday. Together, the massive lenders are expected to deliver combined full-year profits of around 3 trillion yen in total, the Nikkei newspaper has reported, citing the strength of the business environment both at home and abroad.
The banks are all seen benefitting from higher interest rates overseas, as well as more mergers and acquisitions and other deals in Japan.
For the current financial year, SMFG forecast a net profit of 1.06 trillion yen. That compared with the full-year profit of 962.95 billion in the year that just ended. REUTERS
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