Peter J. July, Group Chairman, RBTT Financial Holdings Limited, has announced that the Group recorded pre-tax earnings of US$145 million for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2007, an improvement of 5% over the corresponding period last year.  The profit attributable to shareholders of US$107 million was affected by a higher effective Group tax rate, which moved up from 21% to 25%, mainly due to changes to the tax legislation in one jurisdiction, increased provisions for tax assessments and higher taxable income generated by the retail banking entities.  As a consequence, diluted earnings per share moved down to US$0.31, compared with US$0.32 for the comparable period last year.

The Chairman said that the Group’s Retail Banking business continues to perform strongly, with earnings moving ahead of the previous year by 32%.  “However, the performance of our Investment Banking and Trust and Asset Management businesses mirror soft market conditions, and profits are lower by 17% and 19%, respectively, year over year,” he said. “We expect these trends to continue through quarter four.”

For the year to date, total assets have increased by US$0.6 billion or 8%, and now stand at $8 billion.  Loans have grown by 10% or US$0.3 billion and Customer Deposits by 8% or US$0.4 billion.  Asset quality continues to improve as evidenced by the ratio of non-performing loans to total loans, moving down to 2.3% from 2.9% a year ago.  Shareholders’ Equity has increased by 7% during the period and stands at US$0.8 billion.

“On October 2, 2007, we announced an agreement reached with Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), subject to shareholders’ approval, to combine RBTT and RBC’s Caribbean retail banking operations,” July added. “Since then, we have been working closely with the regulators to finalise the Directors’ Circular and other documentation in preparation for a special meeting of shareholders, at which we will seek approval for the transaction.  This process has taken longer than anticipated but is now close to completion, and we expect to be in a position to announce the date of the meeting shortly.