Lombard Bank shareholders adopted a resolution at their annual general meeting on Thursday declaring a final gross dividend of €0.10 per share to be received either in cash or by the issue of new shares. The attribution price for the purpose of determining the new share allocation had been set at €2.50.

Lombard chairman Christian Lemmerich said the bank continued to embrace a conservative and prudent approach with regard to its treasury management and lending policies.

He was addressing shareholders who were presented with an overview of the financial performance of the Lombard Group for 2008.

The group registered record profits before tax of €14.14 million, representing an increase of 33 per cent over the previous year and this notwithstanding the global financial crisis and economic downturn.

The Capital Adequacy Ratio remained comfortably above the regulatory minimum of eight per cent and at the end of 2008, stood at 15.2 per cent.

Loan to Deposit ratio at below 74 per cent confirmed that the bank was comfortably in a position to fund its lending activities without needing to rely on the interbank market.

Return on Equity was 24.5 per cent on a pre-tax basis while Net Asset Value and Earnings per Share increased from €1.48 to €1.65 and €0.206 to €0.241 respectively.

The chairman also informed shareholders that in 2008, the bank had acted as manager and registrar for the Initial Public Offering by the government of its shareholding in MaltaPost of which the bank held 63.8 per cent as at the end of the financial year.

Lombard Bank considers its shareholding in MaltaPost as a strategic rather than financial investment. MaltaPost registered a record profit of €1.88 million for the business year ended September 30, 2008 which is reflected in Lombard Bank Group results.