CREDITANSTALT SEES HIGHER 1987 DIVIDEND
Creditanstalt-Bankverein <CABV.VI> is
likely to raise its 1987 dividend from the 1986 payment of 12
pct of share capital, deputy general-director Guido
Schmidt-Chiari said.
    The 1985 dividend was 10 pct, unchanged from the previous
year and Schmidt-Chiari noted that the parent bank's share
capital had risen to 3.1 billion schillings at the end of 1986
from 2.7 billion a year earlier.
    Schmidt-Chiari made the forecast at a news conference when
the bank announced a 1986 consolidated banking group net profit
of 496.7 mln schillings for 1986, against 354.5 mln in 1985.
    Schmidt-Chiari did not elaborate on his dividend forecast.
    The banking group's consolidated balance sheet total rose
to 453.4 billion schillings at year-end from 425.4 billion.
    General director Hannes Androsch said higher investment
would lead to continuing growth in profits in future. Last
year's better profits had resulted from improvements in
services provided by the bank and also in profits on schilling
lending.
    Schilling lending had grown last year and interest rate
margins had also improved but remained unsatisfactory when
compared with those in other countries, he said.
    Increased provisions for possible bad debts at home and
abroad, particularly in Latin America, had lowered profits,
Androsch said, but declined to give an exact figure.
    Schmidt-Chiari said that foreign lending business had
fallen significantly due to exchange rate fluctuations,
removing some 22 billion schillings from the balance sheet
total.
    In an attempt to generate more foreign business,
representative offices would be opened this year in Tokyo, Hong
Kong, Moscow and Prague. Androsch welcomed government plans to
abolish legal controls on foreigners buying voting shares and
drawing dividends.
    Preference shares of state-controlled Creditanstalt rose
eight schillings on the Vienna Bourse today to 2,008. Brokers
said improved results had been widely expected by investors.
    Androsch said industrial holdings had performed better in
1986 than in previous years, giving a return on investment of
2.6 pct compared with 1.3 pct in 1985. Creditanstalt, Austria's
largest bank, holds majority interests in 10 medium-sized and
large Austrian companies.
    But he forecast its biggest industrial subsidiary, Steyr
-Daimler-Puch AG <SDPV.VI> would return a 1987 result similar
to the expected 1986 operating loss of 700 mln schillings.
 REUTER
