Cyprus Mail www.cyprus-mail.com
Saturday, September 1, 2012
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Popular posts record losses Island’s second largest lender announces halfyear loss of €1.3b By George Psyllides
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HE Popular Bank yesterday announced a €1.3 billion half-year loss mainly on heavy provisions for non-performing loans and an impairment of goodwill. The news comes two days after Bank of Cyprus posted a first-half net loss of €134 million on increased provisions for non-performing loans, and on the same day that Hellenic Bank announced a €14.9 million profit for the first half of the year despite the rise in provisions for non-performing loans. Popular (Laiki) Bank, the island’s secondbiggest lender, which was part-nationalised in June after its regulatory capital was depleted from heavy exposure to Greek sovereign debt, said it increased provisions for non-performing loans to €885 million compared with €183 million in the first half of 2011.
The bulk, or €706 million concerned its Greek loan portfolio, Popular said. “The resulting coverage ratio for non-performing loans stands at the high level of 48 per cent for the Group,” the lender said. Popular said it “also proceeded to effect an additional impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets of €580 million, mainly from its activities in Greece, due to further deterioration of economic conditions in the country. This impairment has no impact on the Group’s regulatory capital position but increases the accounting loss attributable to shareholders to €1.3 billion.” Excluding the impairment of goodwill and other intangible assets, the bank said its first-half losses reached €729 million versus €202 million in the first six months of 2011. “It is worth noting that TURN TO PAGE 2
A woman talks on her phone as she walks down a flooded street yesterday in Slidell, Louisiana where residents are coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac (AFP)
Racist attack on black camerawoman at Republican Convention A BLACK camerawoman who works for CNN spoke yesterday of a race-hate attack at the Republican National Convention by two people who hurled peanuts at her and said: “This is what we feed animals”. The two white people were immediately removed from the Tampa, Florida, convention arena by security officials on Tuesday, and their identities were not revealed. The camerawoman, Patricia Carroll, was not able to tell definitively where they were from.
“This is Florida and I’m from the deep South,” Alabama native Carroll, 34, told Maynard Institute blogger Richard Prince. “You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don’t think I should do.” She said racism was a global issue and the incident could have happened on a street corner or at the Democratic convention, being held next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Rom-
ney’s campaign said on Thursday it has apologised to CNN for what happened. “We find it absolutely deplorable. We condemn it in the highest possible way,” said Russ Schriefer, strategist for the Romney campaign. “That behaviour is ... reprehensible.” CNN said Carroll was not interested in addressing the issue any further. She told Prince she was hoping the story would go away. “I can’t change these people’s hearts and minds,” she said.