Chinese lender Bank of Jinzhou Co. Ltd. reported a net loss of 4.54 billion yuan for the year ended Dec. 31, 2018.
The bank had signaled the potential for a sizable loss days earlier, when it said higher provisions for impairments, a greater balance of nonperforming assets and the adoption of the IFRS 9 accounting standard would hurt its results. At the time, Bank of Jinzhou said it expected to post a loss of about 4 billion yuan to 5 billion yuan for the 2018 year.
The reported annual loss was a steep drop from the company's 2017 net income of 9.09 billion yuan.
The bank generated 19.10 billion yuan in net interest income, its primary source of revenue, which was up 3.1% year over year. But it also recorded impairment asset losses of 23.68 billion yuan.
The results follow an earlier investment by the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and China Cinda Asset Management Co. Ltd. to acquire stakes totaling 17.31% in Bank of Jinzhou.
The company expects the losses to continue in 2019. In its Aug. 20 statement, the bank also said it expected to post a loss of about 500 million yuan to 1 billion yuan for the six months ended June 30.
As of Aug. 30, US$1 was equivalent to 6.85 yuan.
