Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate: Australia's NAB to restructure UK banks, H1 cash profit up

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Australia's NAB to restructure UK banks, H1 cash profit up Apr 29th 2012, 22:53 MELBOURNE, April 30 | Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:53pm EDT MELBOURNE, April 30 (Reuters) - National Australia Bank will restructure its UK banks at a cost of 195 million pounds ($317 million) after deciding it was too hard to sell the business and too hard to expand in a depressed market. NAB, which has been reviewing its Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks in light of deteriorating conditions in Britain, said on Monday the moves would cut its risk appetite and improve the banks' returns and costs. In addition to the restructuring costs, it said it would write down the goodwill associated with Clydesdale of 141 million pounds and set aside a further 120 million pounds in payment protection insurance. It aims to cut 1,400 jobs in the UK business by 2015 as part of an effort to reduce costs by about 74 million pounds. NAB, due to report its half-year results on May 10, also said its first-half cash earnings rose 5.7 percent to A$2.82 billion, mainly driven by its wholesale banking arm offsetting a higher charge for bad debts in the UK arm. That was roughly in line with what some analysts expected, although its bad debt charge rose 14 percent to A$1.13 billion, which was worse than some analysts had expected. The bank said it would increase it expected to increase its interim dividend to 90 cents a share. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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