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Product category: Mortgages / Housing
News Release from: Principality Building Society | Subject: Company news
Edited by the Insidemoneytalk Editorial Team on 08 February 2008

Principality announces 2007 annual
results

Thriving in turbulent times

Whilst the world of global financial services faces increasing turbulence the Principality, Wales' largest building society, today bucked the trend and delivered a very impressive set of results for the 2007 financial year.Key trading highlights included two key milestones as the Society moved into the top ten largest building societies in the UK for the first time in its history, and also broke through the £5bn assets barrier In addition:Highlights include:Group assets increased by £1,022.3m to £5,852.5m The pre-tax profit for the Group was £30.6m Net profit after tax was £20.5m, equivalent to 0.38% of mean assets employed Mortgage assets increased by 17.9% to £4,584.0m Members savings increased by 11.7% to 3,804.3m Retained earnings increased by 7.6% to £277.3m Commenting on the performance Principality Chief Executive Peter Griffiths said: "I am delighted to report another very successful year for the Principality Group

We have made further progress with strong growth and increased profits.

Most importantly we have continued to deliver competitive savings and mortgage products for our members - which is the true benchmark of success for a mutual building society." Peter added: "The challenge for the business was to continue to deliver a certain future in an uncertain world for all its stakeholders, and there was nowhere more uncertain right now than the world of financial services.

The crisis in the US market, and its influence on the UK banking sector, has created a significant liquidity challenge for a number of financial institutions.

However, Principality, with its traditional building society business model, has been well placed to weather this storm with over 83% of our mortgages funded by retail savings deposits from our members.

The strength of our balance sheet, coupled with the good quality of our mortgage assets, has meant we have been able to satisfy our relatively modest wholesale funding requirements.""In the retail savings market we have seen record inflows.

We have continued our policy of offering members a wide range of savings products with attractive interest rates and broadened our distribution strategy with the launch of an e-savings channel.""All businesses in the Group performed well in 2007.

We have seen steady, prudent growth in lending within the Society and also in our Commercial Lending division and Nemo Personal Finance, our secured loan business.

We have not compromised on quality and arrears in the Society remain at historically low levels whilst Commercial Lending and Nemo are also experiencing arrears below their respective industry averages." David Williams, Chairman of Principality Building Society, said: "We recognise that current uncertainty in the financial markets may cause concern for our members but we remain confident that our history, values, strategy and performance during 2007 allow us to safely say that members can continue to trust us with their financial affairs.

It is clear that over the recent past there has been a flight to quality and return to trusted financial service sector brands.

Research tells us that Principality is one of the most trusted brands in Wales and we have no intention of compromising on that great legacy.

We move into 2008 confident of further success and our focus will continue to be on maintaining our position as the leading Welsh provider of mortgages, savings and financial services."To view table of Cash and cash equivalents at end of year please click on the link at the end of this release.

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