HypoVereinsbank posts first Profit in Five Quarters

HypoVereinsbank, Germany’s second-largest bank, announced on Wednesday that it had posted its first profit in five quarters after selling its Norisbank unit. Third-quarter net income was €196 million, or 36 cents a share, compared with a loss of €166 million, or 31 cents per share, a year earlier, according to Bloomberg News. The Munich-based HypoVereinsbank said it expects to have a fourth-quarter operating profit and to break even on a net basis in 2003. “We are delivering what we promised,” HypoVereinsbank board spokesman Dieter Rampl told the Reuters news agency. “We are making gut progress but we know that will still have a long way ahead of us.”