ABN Amro Q3 profit up 19 percent; to shed more jobs

By Toby Sterling

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - ABN Amro Group announced new job cuts on Wednesday and acknowledged it is holding more capital than planned as it reported a 19 percent rise in third-quarter underlying profit.

While analysts said the earnings were better than expected, questions over a strategic plan announced along with the earnings drove down its shares, which earlier in the week had reached their highest level since ABN's 2015 initial public offering.

ABN said a growing Dutch economy and fewer bad loans helped profits to 607 million euros ($650 million), up from 509 million euros a year ago.

Seven analysts polled by Reuters had forecast underlying profit at 501 million euros.

 

Along with the earnings, ABN announced plans for another 1,500 job cuts to save another 400 million euros by 2020. In September, it announced plans to cut between 975 and 1,375 jobs to save 200 million euros, also by 2020.

In all, job numbers will fall from 26,500 in 2015 to 23,000 in 2020, a 13 percent reduction.

Analyst Albert Ploegh of ING, who rates shares a buy, said cost cuts will be offset by increased spending on its online and mobile banking platforms, and on increasing salaries for remaining employees.

"With costs flat, you can question whether there won't be some margin pressure," Ploegh said. "Improvement will have to come from revenue growth, but it's hard to see where the top line should come from, even if interest rates do pick up a bit."

Shares fell 4.2 percent to 20.88 euros by 1243 GMT.

Last week, the company said CFO Kees van Dijkhuizen would become CEO, replacing Gerrit Zalm, by mid-February..

Zalm, a former finance minister, was appointed in the wake of ABN Amro's 2009 nationalisation, while Van Dijkhuizen joined in 2013 and helped oversee the bank's re-privatisation a year ago.

Zalm attributed the 19 percent rise in underlying profit to "continued robust net interest income, cost control and low impairments".

On the sidelines of a press conference, incoming CEO Van Dijkhuizen acknowleged ABN's Tier 1 Capital ratio of 16.6 percent is far beyond its own target of 11.5 percent.

He said the bank is awaiting new international banking rules on how much cash must be held against ABN's large mortgage portfolio before it knows whether the excess cash can be used for dividends or share buy backs.

($1 = 0.9306 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)