FIMBank plc – Interim Directors’ Statement

FIMBank plc – Interim Directors' Statement

FIMBank p.l.c announced that the second half of 2012 has been characterised by encouraging opportunities that continued to present themselves in the markets and business sectors where the FIMBank Group is active. London Forfaiting Company remained a strong element in the Group’s performance showing good trading results and consistent growth. On its part, FIMBank maintained its selective approach to business in markets, such as Africa, where political and economic normality, albeit at times fragile, has been gradually returning. New opportunities in commodity finance, particularly softs, metals and energy, also continued to become more evident and the Bank has been making further inroads into transactional banking business to satisfy clients' demands. Overall, the Bank’s business strategy continues to focus mainly on short-term self-liquidating transactions supporting real trade-related flows.

Menafactors, the Dubai-based subsidiary covering the MENA region, maintained the positive trend of the first half as the outlook for business continued to stabilise and improve. In Egypt and Russia the performance of the associated companies, Egypt Factors and FactorRus respectively, continued to be marked by measured growth and challenging results while in India, after an impressively strong entry into the market, the performance of India Factors is now settling down to levels more consistent with the cautious economic outlook and lower growth forecasts for the sub-continent. On the other hand, the results to date of BrasilFactors continue to reflect a break-even operating performance in its start-up year of operations.

In July, the FIMBank Group Head Office was officially relocated to its new premises at Mercury Tower, The Exchange Financial & Business Centre, St. Julian’s, where the new office set-up includes significantly improved and state-of the-art facilities that bring together all of the Group’s operations in Malta.

To view the official company announcement, click here.