Absa posts earnings a day early

Johannesburg - Absa Group [JSE:ASA], South Africa's biggest retail lender majority owned by Britian's Barclays, reported flat first-half earnings on Wednesday, hit by slack demand for loans and said its outlook remained tough.

Banks in Africa's biggest economy have struggled to post convincing growth as debt levels and unemployment remain high following a recession that ended last year.

Absa said headline earnings per share totalled 539.3c in the six months to end-June, down 4% from 564.4c a year earlier.

Net interest income, the measure of earnings from lending, gained 5% to R11.3bn.

The results were widely expected after the bank said last week it expected earnings to fall by as much as 5%.

Absa was due to release results on Thursday, but reported a day early after some investors obtained earnings information beforehand, prompting the JSE to temporarily halt trade of the stock

"There are currently two levels of information in the market, with certain investors having seen Absa's results for the six months to end-June 2010 in the Financial Mail magazine before they were released," the JSE said in a statement.

Bloomberg News on Wednesday released details of the results, citing an advertisement in South Africa's weekly Financial Mail, a day before the magazine was available on the newsstand.

Shares of Absa resumed trade after the earnings were released and were little changed, down 0.22% at R134.20 as of 12:39 pm.

  - Reuters