UOB shares plunge as much as 4.6% after Q3 profit tumbles
[SINGAPORE] Shares of UOB plunged as much as about 4.6 per cent on Thursday (Nov 6) after it reported a 72 per cent drop in net profit.
The counter dropped as low as S$33.25 two minutes after market open for a S$1.62 drop that momentarily slashed UOB’s market value by nearly S$2.7 billion.
It later pared some of the losses to be 2.9 per cent down as at 9.16 am.
The bank’s third quarter net profit fell 72 per cent at S$443 million, compared to S$1.6 billion a year earlier, reported the bank.
The result was far from the S$1.34 billion consensus estimate according to a Bloomberg poll of five analysts.
The lender “pre-emptively set aside” additional allowances worth S$615 million in the third quarter, bringing the total allowance for credit and other losses to S$1.36 billion as at Sep 30. This compared to S$304 million a year earlier.
–Business Times’ Renald Yeo contributed to this report.