Morgan Stanley: CITIC BANK (00998) rated "in line with the market" with a target price of 4.5 Hong Kong dollars.

Morgan Stanley released a research report stating that CITIC BANK (00998) is rated "in line with the market", with a target price of 4.5 Hong Kong dollars. The bank stated that the asset quality of CITIC BANK continues to improve, with the non-performing loan ratio decreasing by 1 percentage point to 1.16% quarterly. The report mentioned that CITIC BANK's revenue growth in the fourth quarter of last year stabilized at 3.6%, which was a slight slowdown from the 6.3% growth in the third quarter. The annual revenue was 213.646 billion yuan, a 3.76% increase from the same period last year. Pre-tax profit and after-tax net profit trends improved, with increases of 16.6% and 7.5% respectively from the same period last year, possibly due to some reversals of provisions. Asset growth increased from 1.7% in the third quarter to 2.9% in the fourth quarter.