(The Group’s Comments) Qatar First Bank Becomes Profitable in Q1 2019 with a Net Profit of QR 3.18 Million

April 24, 2019

·         Profit: The bank turned to profitability at the end of the first quarter of this year to record profits of about QR 3.18 million, after excluding the non-controlling interest, compared to a loss of about QR 47.14 million for the same period last year. The bank’s earnings per share amounted to QR 0.02 per share, versus a loss per share of QR 0.24 in the same period of 2018.

·         Gross Income: amounted to QR 57.51 million in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of 71%, compared to QR 33.64 million in the first quarter of 2018. This improvement was due to higher fee income from QR 6.5 million to QR 14.4 million, in addition to a decrease of QR9.0 million in other losses, which increased the gross income by about QR19 million before investment accounts.

·         Impairment of Financial Assets: This item represents the expected loss in non-regular financing assets, which is a deductible from the profit for the period. In case of debt restructuring, the Bank recovers the allocations and transfer it to profit. During the first quarter, the bank retrieved an allocation of QR 877,000, while in the same period of last year the bank deducted an allocation of QR 26.4 million, i.e. the bank made savings from this item at QR 27 million. In addition, the Bank deducted the allocation for impairment of financial assets by QR 6.4 million, while it retrieved an allocation of QR 2 million for the first quarter of 2018.

·         Accumulated Losses: amounted to about QR 995.3 million, accounting for 49.8% of the capital.