Half way there on Asian earnings

ANZ has a target of earning 20 per cent of its profit from banking businesses in Asia and, on the woolly numbers for the March 2009 half, is half way there. The Asia businesses, which are a collection of minority investments in half decent local banking franchises or small, wholly owned affairs, produced an underlying profit of $198 million, up from $139 million six months before and $96 million 12 months before.

The equity accounted profit of the "partnership businesses" such as in Malaysia and China would have driven most of the increase, as well as "significant revenue growth from the institutional businesses driven by the high volatility in the early part of the year" according to the results. The retail business in Indonesia, where there is a push on in payment cards, also played a part.

ANZ is in the hunt to buy all or some of the RBS Asian assets that are now on the block, a purchase guesstimated by the market to cost the bank in the order of $2.5 billion if successful (a pretty big if) and likely to generate a capital raising in the order of $3 billion to pay for it.