During the Bank of Queensland's annual results presentation yesterday, bank leaders tried hard, but failed, to conceal their satisfaction at the outcome of the bank's acquisition of professional finance business Investec, now renamed BOQ Specialist.  BOQ first announced a strong interest in Investec in early 2014 and finalised the purchase in July 2014 at a cost of A$440 million, including an estimated $230 million to capitalise the business. The acquisition was funded via an "accelerated renounceable entitlement offer," raising $400 million. The deal has been vindicated, as far as chief executive Jon Sutton is concerned. "The acquisition of BOQ Specialist has helped deliver a 15 basis point improvement on the 2014 [net interest margin] in a market where most competitors are reporting margin deterioration," Sutton said at yesterday's results presentation.  "While BOQ Specialist is a higher cost business, it enjoys a higher margin such that our underlying cost to income ratio has re-based at 45 per cent," he said. In more specific terms, BOQ Specialist has contributed strongly to shareholder value in the first year of ownership, Sutton said. The firm has been integrated "on time, on budget with cash earnings of $43 million for FY 2015."  This puts the new business well ahead of "maintainable earnings guidance" provided at the time of acquisition, which was $38 million. Sutton highlighted what he said was a "key additional benefit of the acquisition" - the opportunity for further mortgage distribution. This delivered approximately $1.4 billion in new loans onto BOQ's balance sheet.  Adding in mortgage origination from third-party banks and the figure is $1.9 billion for the full year, an increase of 54 per cent on FY14 performance. BOQ's chief financial officer, Anthony Rose, noted that BOQ had issued approximately ten per cent in additional shares on a rights adjusted basis to fund the acquisition. "By delivering an uplift of 14 per cent on 2014 earnings, this demonstrates the 4 per cent EPS accretion uplift that we had targeted to achieve in 2016 has largely been delivered this year," Rose said.