Agricultural Credit's profit fell 2.2% in the first half of the year, standing at 168.5 million euros, with a return on equity of 10.5%. The group led by Sérgio Frade was penalized by the reduction in the financial margin, which fell 1.5% to 328.4 million euros due to the normalization of interest rates, and by the 8.5% increase in structural costs to 254.8 million euros.
The contribution from insurance companies fell almost 60% to 5.9 million euros, affected by the negative impact of claims costs associated with storm Kristin, which hit the country at the beginning of the year. Insurance contract results fell 11% to nearly 50 million euros. However, net income benefited from the strong improvement in financial operations results, which almost doubled to 22.5 million euros.
The credit portfolio grew 8.1% to 14.5 billion euros, driven by housing credit for young people under the public guarantee line. By the end of June, Agricultural Credit had already granted 251.8 million euros in housing credit for young people, corresponding to approximately 1,500 contracts.
Customer deposits rose more than 2% to 24.3 billion euros, and resources in capital insurance and investment funds amounted to 2.8 billion euros, representing growth of 8% since the beginning of the year.
