British mortgage bank Alliance & Leicester has reported 2003 profit up 12 per cent and says it will buy back shares this year.
Pre-tax profit for the calendar year rose to £525 million sterling (€779.439 million )from £468.3 million a year earlier, the bank said today.
The consensus figure for full-year profit was £520 million, according to the median forecast of a Reuters poll of 10 analysts.
The company said it would buy back between £100 million and £150 million of shares this year and would issue up to £300 million of non-equity tier-one capital in the first half of this year.
The bank said it achieved its main target of increasing earnings per share by at least 10 per cent, with EPS rising 16 percent to 79 pence. The buyback is part of its plan to hit the target again this year, the company said.
The full-year dividend rose 10 per cent to 43.9 pence a share. The bank's shares rose 1.5 per cent to 909p on Thursday.
Alliance & Leicester's shares are unchanged in the past six months, making the stock the fourth-worst performer of the UK's 11 listed banks.