ANKARA: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA reported a bigger-than-expected loss of 1.06 billion euros ($1.16 billion) in the third quarter as Spain’s second-largest bank wrote down a stake in a Turkish lender. The shares fell by as much as 4 percent.
The loss compares with a 601 million-euro profit a year earlier, the lender said in a regulatory filing Friday. Analysts had predicted a loss of 871 million euros, according to the average of six estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Profit excluding the one-time charge, rose 30 percent to 784 million euros.
While BBVA is scaling back in China, Chairman Francisco Gonzalez is betting on growth in Turkey. The bank bought 25 percent of Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS in 2010 and has since increased the stake to about 40 percent, making it the main shareholder. BBVA said in July it would take a one-time charge of about 1.8 billion euros to reflect the decline in the lira, about 35 percent, since it bought the Turkish lender in 2010.
“This quarter has been very atypical due to the volatility in the markets and the devaluation of the currencies against the euro, the most pronounced since the Lehman Brothers crisis,” Chief Operating Officer Carlos Torres said in a separate statement. The bank’s geographical diversification and its business model are the drivers of the lender’s growth, he said.
BBVA was down by about 3 percent at 7.88 euros at 9:17 a.m. in Madrid, leaving the shares little changed this year. That compares with a 27 percent decline in the shares of Spain’s biggest lender, Banco Santander SA, which Thursday reported a 4.3 percent increase in third-quarter net income.
