Com­pared with the first six months of 2014, to­tal op­er­at­ing in­come in­creased by CHF 62.0 mil­lion to CHF 172.5 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 110.5 mil­lion). This rep­re­sents an in­crease of 56.1 per cent. If the ef­fects of the merger with Cen­trum Bank are ig­nored (incl. the ef­fects of the “pur­chase price al­lo­ca­tion”) and in spite of the neg­a­tive im­pact aris­ing from the aban­don­ment of the min­i­mum-ex­change-rate pol­icy ver­sus the euro, to­tal op­er­at­ing in­come of CHF 105.5 mil­lion was achieved. 

In­ter­est in­come rose by 32.1 per cent from CHF 31.5 mil­lion in the first six months of 2014 to CHF 41.6 mil­lion in the first six months of the cur­rent year. As a re­sult of changes to cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tions, net in­ter­est in­come in the client-re­lated and bank­ing busi­nesses in­creased by CHF 1.8 mil­lion. In­ter­est in­come also con­tains changes in the value of in­ter­est-rate hedg­ing trans­ac­tions. Dur­ing the first half year of 2015, un­re­alised losses of CHF 4.4 mil­lion arose (prior-year pe­riod: reval­u­a­tion losses of CHF 8.4 mil­lion). Through the in­tro­duc­tion of hedge ac­count­ing, reval­u­a­tion losses were re­duced by CHF 1.9 mil­lion. 

Dur­ing the first half year of 2015, com­mis­sion and ser­vice in­come in­creased by 9.8 per cent to CHF 65.9 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 60.1 mil­lion). The aban­don­ment of the min­i­mum euro ex­change rate mech­a­nism clearly left its mark on com­mis­sion in­come. In spite of for­eign-cur­rency-re­lated de­clines in vol­umes, en­cour­ag­ing sus­tain­able in­creases (in­crease: CHF 6.7 mil­lion) were achieved in the case of port­fo­lio-based rev­enues such as as­set man­age­ment and the in­vest­ment busi­ness as well as cus­to­dian fees. Client-re­lated secu­ri­ties op­er­a­tions in the first half year of 2015, a pe­riod marked by un­cer­tainty, were lower when com­pared with the pre­vi­ous year, which in turn led to lower bro­ker­age fees. The de­cline of CHF 4.5 mil­lion, or 14 per cent, in in­vest­ment-fund man­age­ment fees to CHF 27.6 mil­lion arises in con­nec­tion for­eign-cur­rency-re­lated de­clines in vol­umes. More than three-quar­ters of the as­sets man­aged in in­vest­ment funds are de­nom­i­nated in for­eign cur­ren­cies. For the same rea­son, com­mis­sion- and ser­vice-fee-re­lated ex­penses also de­clined by CHF 3.7 mil­lion to CHF 24.5 mil­lion. This de­cline arises prin­ci­pally in con­nec­tion with in­vest­ment-fund man­age­ment fees which are passed on. 

In­come from trad­ing rose by 69.9 per cent to CHF 19.8 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 11.6 mil­lion). In­come from trad­ing on be­half of clients in­creased by 45.6 per cent to CHF 20.7 mil­lion (prior year pe­riod: CHF 14.2 mil­lion). This in­crease is to be as­cribed to higher for­eign-cur­rency busi­ness vol­umes in the wake of the aban­don­ment of the main­te­nance of a min­i­mum ex­change rate to the euro. Com­pared with the pre­vi­ous year, trad­ing in se­cu­ri­ties im­proved by CHF 1.6 mil­lion, which is prin­ci­pally to be ex­plained by gains on hedg­ing op­er­a­tions for fi­nan­cial in­vest­ments. 

A loss of CHF 5.7 mil­lion arose in the first half year of 2015 from fi­nan­cial in­vest­ments (prior-year pe­riod: gain of CHF 6.9 mil­lion). As a re­sult of higher in­vest­ment vol­umes, in­ter­est and div­i­dend in­come rose by 20.7 per cent to CHF 4.2 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 3.5 mil­lion). This ad­di­tional in­come, how­ever, was in­suf­fi­cient to off­set the reval­u­a­tion losses re­sult­ing from for­eign-cur­rency move­ments and price de­clines. The op­pos­ing gains and losses aris­ing from the re­lated hedg­ing op­er­a­tions are recorded in in­come from trad­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. 

Other in­come in­cludes the gain as de­ter­mined by the “pur­chase price al­lo­ca­tion” in con­nec­tion with the ac­qui­si­tion of Cen­trum Bank (“bar­gain pur­chase”) in an amount of CHF 50.0 mil­lion. 

Dur­ing the cur­rent re­port­ing pe­riod of 2015, op­er­at­ing ex­penses rose pe­riod on pe­riod by CHF 12.3 mil­lion from CHF 84.5 mil­lion to CHF 96.8 mil­lion (an in­crease of 14.6 per cent). 

This in­crease is in line with the strate­gic di­rec­tion of VP Bank Group and the merger with Cen­trum Bank. The in­te­gra­tion of Cen­trum Bank was ini­ti­ated in the first half year of 2015 with the goal of ex­ploit­ing syn­er­gies and suc­ces­sively elim­i­nat­ing ex­ist­ing du­pli­ca­tions. Ex­pen­di­tures in con­nec­tion with the merger and in­te­gra­tion of Cen­trum Bank amounted to CHF 16.1 mil­lion. Af­ter ig­nor­ing the ef­fects re­lat­ing to Cen­trum Bank, op­er­at­ing ex­penses were re­duced by CHF 3.8 mil­lion, or 4.5 per cent, com­pared to the prior-year pe­riod. 

Com­pared to 30 June 2014, the em­ployee head­count in­creased by 49.3 em­ploy­ees (in­crease of 7.1 per cent), which is to be ex­plained by the merger with Cen­trum Bank. At the end of June 2015, VP Bank Group had 746 em­ploy­ees, ex­pressed in terms of full-time equiv­a­lents. 

Gen­eral and ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­penses rose by 29.4 per cent to CHF 29.5 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 22.8 mil­lion). This in­crease is to be as­cribed to the merger with Cen­trum Bank and the run­ning of par­al­lel op­er­a­tions for a lim­ited pe­riod of time. With the in­te­gra­tion into the ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture and process land­scape, syn­er­gies were suc­ces­sively ex­ploited and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing fu­ture costs re­duced. 

De­pre­ci­a­tion and amor­ti­sa­tion was CHF 4.3 mil­lion (29.6 per cent) higher than in the prior-year pe­riod and amounts to CHF 19.1 mil­lion. This in­crease is to be ex­plained prin­ci­pally by the amort­isa­tion of in­tan­gi­bles aris­ing in con­nec­tion with the merger with Cen­trum Bank. 

In the first half year of 2015, the charges for val­u­a­tion al­lowances, pro­vi­sions and losses amounted to CHF 17.4 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 0.3 mil­lion). Val­u­a­tion al­lowances, pro­vi­sions and losses for credit risks in the cur­rent half year ag­gre­gated CHF 4.2 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 1.0 mil­lion). The in­crease of CHF 3.2 mil­lion is to be ex­plained by a val­u­a­tion al­lowance raised in re­spect of one client credit. 

Re­struc­tur­ing pro­vi­sions were es­tab­lished in con­nec­tion with the merger with Cen­trum Bank amount­ing to CHF 12.3 mil­lion. In­cluded therein are pro­vi­sions for ad­min­is­tra­tive ex­penses of CHF 8.2 mil­lion as well as per­son­nel ex­pense of CHF 4.1 mil­lion (in­clud­ing so­cial plan). 

As re­gards taxes on in­come, there re­sulted a charge of CHF 1.7 mil­lion, which arises in con­nec­tion with changes to de­ferred in­come taxes as well as tax-ex­empted in­come from the merger with Cen­trum Bank. 

Con­sol­i­dated net in­come for the first six months of 2015 amounted to CHF 40.9 mil­lion (prior-year pe­riod: CHF 11.1 mil­lion). Con­sol­i­dated net in­come per bearer share was CHF 6.37 (30 June 2014: CHF 1.92). 

Com­pared with 31 De­cem­ber 2014, to­tal as­sets in­creased by CHF 1.4 bil­lion to CHF 12.6 bil­lion. The bal­ance-sheet as­sets trans­ferred from Cen­trum Bank amounted to some CHF 2.0 bil­lion. Af­ter dis­re­gard­ing this ef­fect, the de­cline in to­tal as­sets of CHF 0.6 bil­lion is to be as­cribed to for­eign-cur­rency ef­fects. 

VP Bank Group has cash and cash equiv­a­lents of CHF 1.9 bil­lion, which is un­changed from 31 De­cem­ber 2014, and con­tin­ues to pos­sess a very com­fort­able level of liq­uid­ity. In ad­di­tion to the as­sump­tion of fi­nan­cial in­stru­ments of Cen­trum Bank ag­gre­gat­ing CHF 294.9 mil­lion, fi­nan­cial in­stru­ments re­duc­ing amounts due from banks were in­creased by a fur­ther CHF 111.0 mil­lion. 

Since the be­gin­ning of the year, client loans have risen by CHF 657.6 mil­lion (15.4 per cent) to CHF 4.9 bil­lion as of 30 June 2015. Of this amount, CHF 602.2 mil­lion re­lates to client loans taken over from Cen­trum Bank. The in­crease of CHF 55.4 mil­lion is based prin­ci­pally on mort­gage loans. In this re­spect, VP Bank con­tin­ues un­changed with its fo­cus on a high level of dis­ci­pline and con­trol in credit-grant­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, which takes on added im­por­tance given the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion on the real-es­tate mar­ket. 

On the li­a­bil­i­ties‘ side, client de­posits and medium-term notes have in­creased since the be­gin­ning of the year by CHF 1.1 bil­lion (11.8 per cent) to CHF 10.8 bil­lion in spite of cur­rency in­flu­ences. The client de­posits trans­ferred from Cen­trum Bank at the be­gin­ning of 2015 amounted to CHF 1.8 bil­lion. As a re­sult of two deben­ture bond is­sues, this bal­ance-sheet cap­tion in­creased by CHF 187.6 mil­lion. 

As part of the cap­i­tal in­crease ap­proved on the oc­ca­sion of the ex­tra­or­di­nary meet­ing of share­hold­ers, Marxer Stiftung für Bank- und Un­ternehmenswerte par­tic­i­pated in the in­crease as a fur­ther an­chor share­holder in VP Bank. The eq­uity of VP Bank Group was thereby strength­ened in a sus­tain­able man­ner. The pub­lic fixed-price of­fer an­nounced on 18 June 2015 was fully re­flected as a li­a­bil­ity and de­ducted from eq­uity. As of the end of June 2015, the eq­uity ag­gre­gated CHF 922 mil­lion (31 De­cem­ber 2014: CHF 868 mil­lion). 

As of 30 June 2015, the tier 1 ra­tio, com­puted in ac­cor­dance with the new Basel III rules, amounted to 21.9 per cent (31 De­cem­ber 2014: 20.5 per cent, com­puted in ac­cor­dance with Basel II rules).