- RIYADH: Samba Financial Group, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest lender by market value, posted a 7.1 percent fall in its first-quarter net profit, roughly in-line with analyst expectations.
Samba made a net profit of SR1.12 billion in the three months to end March, compared with SR1.2 billion in the same period a year earlier, it said in a bourse statement.
Analysts, polled by Reuters, expected Samba to make an average SR1.1 billion in net profit for the first-quarter.
Saudi lenders have failed to impress investors so far as banks such as Banque Saudi Fransi reported a marginal rise in first quarter profit but fell short of analyst expectations.
Al-Rajhi Bank, the Kingdom’s largest Islamic lender, also missed analyst forecasts on Monday, when it reported first quarter gains on improving operational profits.