Chile's Grupo Security SA on March 1 posted a 38.9% rise in its fourth-quarter net profit amid a jump in Banco Security SA's income and a plunge in its life insurance business.
The financial group showed net income of 21.05 billion Chilean pesos for the three-month period, up from 15.15 billion pesos earned a year earlier. EBITDA rose to 32.51 billion pesos from 26.09 billion pesos year over year.
The results came as profit from Banco Security jumped 77.9% year over year to 15.13 billion pesos from 8.50 billion pesos year over year.
Net interest income at the group, meanwhile, rose 15.6% year over year to 39.99 billion pesos, and net commission income grew 14.5% to 15.57 billion pesos. At the same time operating expenses fell 29.0% to 29.30 billion pesos while net provision expenses increased by 42.5% to 11.22 billion pesos.
Income from the group's factoring business, meanwhile, ticked 2.7% year over year to 1.92 billion pesos.
Those results helped to offset a sharp dive in Grupo Security's insurance division, where the company saw profits at its Seguros Vida Security Previsión S.A. unit sink 99.3% to 46 million pesos from 6.66 billion pesos in the year-ago period, largely as cost of claims rose 104.2% to 73.36 billion pesos from 35.93 billion pesos a year earlier.
In its investments area, the company's Valores Security division swung to a 813 million peso profit from 502 million pesos a year earlier, while AGF Security's income grew to 2.30 billion pesos.
The quarterly results brought Grupo Security's full-year 2017 net profit to 74.71 billion pesos, up 0.2% from 74.52 billion pesos earned a year earlier.
As of March 1, US$1 was equivalent to 595.18 Chilean pesos.
