Rapheal John-Lall

ANSA Mer­chant Bank and its sub­sidiaries had a prof­it be­fore tax (PBT) of $297.3 mil­lion in 2015–the sec­ond high­est in the bank's his­to­ry.

Man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Gre­go­ry Hill said this re­sult rep­re­sents a 13 per cent in­crease over the 2014 PBT of $262.2 mil­lion. He said all the bank's prof­it lines, com­pris­ing bank­ing, mu­tu­al funds, gen­er­al in­sur­ance and life in­sur­ance, all showed growth last year.

To­tal rev­enue of $721.1 mil­lion was three per cent bet­ter than the 2014 to­tal rev­enue of $703.4 mil­lion and the bank's prof­it af­ter tax for 2015 was $169.8 mil­lion.

Ac­cord­ing to the bank's an­nu­al re­port, gen­er­al in­sur­ance sub­sidiary Tatil had a "re­mark­able year" in 2015. Prof­it be­fore tax­a­tion for the gen­er­al in­sur­ance busi­ness in­creased by 12 per cent from $85.6 mil­lion in 2014 to $95.5 mil­lion in 2015 and un­der­writ­ing prof­it reached $68.4 mil­lion.

The board of di­rec­tors has ap­proved a fi­nal div­i­dend of $0.85 which brings the to­tal div­i­dend to $1.05, a five per cent in­crease over the 2014 div­i­dend and the high­est full year div­i­dend to be paid to share­hold­ers in the bank's his­to­ry.

"The bank is well-cap­i­talised and our bal­ance sheet re­mains strong and well-poised to be re­silient against the eco­nom­ic head­winds which are an­tic­i­pat­ed for 2016 and be­yond. In 2015, we have strength­ened our bal­ance sheet and tak­en a more con­ser­v­a­tive po­si­tion on our as­sets to en­sure that we are well poised for fu­ture growth in the chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times ahead," Hill said in his re­port to share­hold­ers.