CIMB upbeat on another record year

KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, which has achieved a year of record revenue and net profit last year, is bullish on an even better year ahead in 2017, driven by improving regional economy, declining provisions with improved asset quality, as well as continued cost discipline.
"The economic prospects for Malaysia and the rest of the region is actually improving. In the last three months we are seeing pick-up in terms of business confidence," the group's chairman Datuk Seri Nazir Razak said at a press conference after its AGM here today.
"In terms of loan growth, we are quite positive that this year's momentum will be sustainable. Therefore we hope to record another record year this year and to see growth in our topline," Nazir added.
Furthermore, he said the group also sees a recovery in terms of interest to clinch deals, which is partly driven by leadership changes in institutional organisations such as government-linked fund manager Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB).

"We sense businesses have been docile in dealing with reducing costs and synergising more revenue and we have seen a lot of interest to approach the investment bankers from the market place," he noted.
Nevertheless, he said the government as well as corporates need to step up efforts to tackle the negativities in investor sentiment, which has resulted in significant weakness in the ringgit.
"I think there is still work to do in terms of attracting more interests to the ringgit and investments in Malaysia. We've been through tough times in the past few years. The government and corporates have work to do to overcome those negativities," he said.
Meanwhile, the group's chief executive Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz said the group's outlook for 2017 should be better than last year, given the measures that the group has taken since last year, including to improve its loan book in Indonesia and Thailand.
"We recorded a record revenue last year where we passed the RM16 billion mark. However it didn't really translated into profit given the challenges (we had) in terms of asset quality in both Indonesia as well as Thailand," Zafrul said.
This year, Zafrul said the group will also continue focusing on its strict cost-control initiatives, noting its cost-to-income ratio has declined to 53% last year from 59% a year ago, and is targeting to bring it to 50% by end of the year.
CIMB closed lower 0.17% or 1 sen at RM5.74 today, with some 14.79 million shares traded.