Foreign assets power BNS

Article Excerpt

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $69.95 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $85.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.0%; www.scotiabank.com) is Canada’s third-largest bank with total assets of $1.06 trillion. Excluding one-time items, the bank earned $2.26 billion in its fiscal 2019 second quarter, ended April 30, 2019. That’s up 3.3% from $2.19 billion a year earlier. The bank sold shares to help finance recent acquisitions, so earnings per share fell 0.6%, to $1.70 from $1.71. Earnings from Canadian banking operations (47% of the total) in the quarter improved 3.9% on strong loan growth and recent acquisitions. Bank of Nova Scotia’s international business (35% of earnings) reported 15.2% higher profits on strong deposit and loan growth for its four key Latin American markets: Peru, Colombia, Chile and Mexico. However, earnings from securities trading (18%) fell 6.0% partly due to higher regulatory costs and spending on technology. Revenue improved 10.6%, to $7.80 billion from $7.06 billion. The bank raised its quarterly dividend by 2.4%…