Finance Association, November 8 (Reporter Shi Sitong) On the afternoon of November 8, the Bank of Lanzhou held a financial briefing for the third quarter of 2024. At the meeting, Bank of Lanzhou management responded to investors' concerns about interest spreads, dividends, and stock prices one by one.

A Finance Association reporter noticed that in the current context where interest spreads in the industry continue to be under pressure, the Bank of Lanzhou's overall net interest spread performance has been relatively stable since this year. As of the end of September, the bank's net interest spread was 1.45%, down 1 bp from the beginning of the year.

In response, Xu Jianping, Party Secretary and Chairman of the Bank of Lanzhou, said at today's results meeting that the company's net interest spread has remained stable since this year, mainly due to continuous improvement in debt costs. In the future, debt-side cost control will continue to be strengthened to cushion the impact of falling asset-side interest rates on net interest spreads. “However, net interest spreads are still under some pressure due to factors such as declining quoted interest rates in the loan market, interest rate swaps on existing mortgages, and loan repricing.”

Looking at specific operations, by the end of September, the Bank of Lanzhou had absorbed 360.225 billion yuan in deposits, an increase of 6.78% over the beginning of the year; the balance of loans and advances was 247.825 billion yuan, up 4.10% from the beginning of the year. “It is expected that deposits will continue to grow steadily throughout the year, while the growth rate of loans will remain stable throughout the year.” Xu Jianping said.

In response to investors' concerns about deposit regularization, Xu Jianping said that the bank has maintained a debt structure with a relatively high share of personal time deposits. Since this year, it is not obvious that regularization has continued to rise, and the internal structure of time deposits has been optimized.

On the credit side, Xu Jianping further pointed out that since this year, the overall growth rate of Bank of Lanzhou loans has slowed down due to factors such as weakening demand for effective credit and weak housing mortgage loans. However, in the future, as a package of incremental policies comes to fruition and the country further promotes the development of the western region, it is expected that demand for regional credit will pick up somewhat, and the bank's loan growth rate is expected to improve marginally.

It is worth mentioning that during this performance meeting, many investors also raised questions related to the bank's stock price, including “how to deal with the breakout problem”, “what innovative measures are there to raise the stock price”, etc.

In fact, since the listing, Bank of Lanzhou's stock price fell into a continuous downward state after going through its initial peak. According to reports, the Bank of Lanzhou's listing price was 3.57 yuan/share, and as of today's close, its stock price was 2.61 yuan/share, down 27% from the issue price. The latest market value was 14.87 billion yuan.

In response, Zhang Shaowei, secretary of the board of directors of the Bank of Lanzhou, said that in the future, it will enhance the company's fundamental value, continue to promote strategic transformation, do a good job in information disclosure and investor relationship management, and strengthen communication with investors. At the same time, efforts are made to improve the level of return to investors by integrating the company's operating conditions, development strategies and capital conditions.

“The Bank attaches great importance to market value management, but currently the banking industry is still facing a situation of undervaluation. The Bank will actively manage market value and increase investor confidence.” Zhang Shaowei said. At the same time, in response to questions raised by many investors about whether the Bank of Lanzhou is willing to restructure, he said that the company has no information to be disclosed relating to the restructuring.

Furthermore, in this results meeting, the issue of dividends is still the focus of concern for many investors. In response, Zhang Shaowei said that the bank's 2023 annual shareholders' meeting has agreed to authorize the board of directors to formulate and implement a specific 2024 mid-term profit distribution plan if profit distribution conditions are met. The board of directors will formulate specific plans based on the company's profit situation, cash flow situation, medium- and long-term development plans, etc., and will be announced separately after the relevant plans are determined.