Wheelock and Co yesterday blamed the economic turmoil in Asia and a lack of exceptional contributions for a 43 per cent plunge to $1.45 billion in attributable profit for the year to March 31.
Chairman Gonzaga Li said: 'Despite the uncertain outlook of the economy in the near future, we see resilience in our performance.' Turnover totalled $7.49 billion, up from the previous year's $5.83 billion, while earnings per share plummeted to 71.5 cents from $1.25 per share last year.
Wheelock booked an exceptional gain of $915.5 million the previous year from the sale of investments including Wheelock NatWest Securities, giving it a huge earnings boost.
But according to IBES International, the consensus among analysts was still for net profit to rise 7 per cent to $2.72 billion.
Total debt to assets was 25.5 per cent, Wheelock said.
Executive director John Hung was reported as saying Wheelock's treasury operations - which have a book value of $4 billion - lost $200 million in the past year.
