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Morning business news 27 July

PTSB CEO Jeremy Masding tells Adam Maguire about the lender's half year results
PTSB CEO Jeremy Masding tells Adam Maguire about the lender's half year results

Permanent TSB has reported a post-tax profit of €80 million for the first six months of the year - the first time it has done so in almost a decade.

In half year results published this morning the bank said it had a profit of €117 million before tax and exceptional items - compared to €1 million in the same period of last year.

Meanwhile its profit after tax of €80 million compares to a loss of €410 million in the first half of 2015.

"It's the first profit since 2007 so we're definitely trending in the right direction," said PTSB CEO Jeremy Masding.

"We've improved on all the lines, whether that be new lending or impairment, so I'm pleased that we're making the progress that we promised the Troika and taxpayer back in 2012."

The bank said its net interest margin rose by 31 basis points to 1.43% during the six months, while it also grew its new mortgage lending by 4% year on year.

During the period PTSB also said it recorded an impairment write back of €61 million, while it also gained €29 million from the sale of a share in Visa Europe - both of which provided a significant boost to its bottom line. However Mr Masding said the core business of the bank was also performing strongly.

"In terms of day-to-day business we are really continuing to compete hard," he said.

"We are really competitive across all of our product sets and I'm seeing applications coming to the branches, online or through the telephony channel to the level that I'm really quite satisfied with.

"Things are looking positive."

PTSB accepts that there are still plenty of challenges ahead for it, however, not least its ongoing attempt to offload a £2.3 billion British mortgage loan book - a task that has been complicated further by the Brexit vote.

"It has a timing impact on the sale our legacy UK CHL business," Mr Masding said.

"That business is only approximately 11% of our total book and the sale will happen but the referendum outcome means it's not possible for us to say when."

If the bank was to sell that loan book now it could be facing a poorer price due to the weakness in sterling, however Mr Masding said that his team had ensured they had enough of a buffer to ensure that a rushed disposal was not required - which provides some insulation from that particular issue.

Back in the Irish mortgage market, it is a year - almost to the day - since PTSB announced a redress scheme for 1,400 customers which related to their tracker mortgages.

Mr Masding again apologised in relation to the bank's handling of the issue - which saw some being stopped from returning to their tracker rate after choosing to switch to a fixed rate for a period of time.

He also said that the redress scheme was moving along at a good pace, with the majority of customers having now been dealt with.

"Over 90% of those customers have been fully redressed," he said.

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MORNING BRIEFS - Apple sold more iPhones than Wall Street expected in the third quarter and estimated its revenue in the current period would top many analysts' targets, soothing fears that demand for the company's most important product had hit a wall.

Its shares rose 7% in after-hours trading.

The world's most valuable publicly traded company said it sold 40.4m iPhones in the third quarter, down 15% from the year-ago quarter but slightly more than the average analyst forecast of 40.02m.

iPhone sales dropped for the second straight quarter, pushing down Apple's total revenue 14.6% in the fiscal third quarter, ended 25 June.

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Smurfit Kappa has reported a pre-tax profit of €312m for the six months to the end of June - up 28% year on year.

The paper and packaging company saw its revenues rise by just 1% to €4.05 billion, though it said it had continued to focus on efficiency and growing its reach in the period.

Smurfit Kappa said it had volume growth of 2% in Europe during the six months, while it had also sustained strong growth in the Americas.