Saudi lender Samba Financial Group posted a $3.73 billion fall in the value of its investments in the first quarter, although its net profit rose a better than expected 6 percent. Investments fell to SR53 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2009, which is about 21 percent below their value at the end of the same period a year earlier, the bank said in a statement, without explaining the fall. It declined to comment by telephone. “From an accounting perspective, if these were unrealized losses they don't get included in the profit and loss statement because they affect its balance sheet or the bank's worth not its net profit,” said Ibrahim Al-Alwan, deputy chief executive at KSB Capital investment bank. “But if these losses continue for a certain period they have to be deducted from as realized losses.” “Samba did not clarify what happened there,” he added. The Kingdom's second-largest lender by market has attributed a fall in fourth-quarter profit partially to “fluctuations in the financial markets”. Net profit in the three months to March 31 rose to SR1.272 billion ($339.2 million), from SR1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2008, the bank said. Analysts' forecasts for Samba's first-quarter profit ranged between SR0.89 billion to 1.06 billion in a Reuters survey this month. Total operating income rose 11 percent to SR1.99 billion although net income from special commissions - the equivalent of net income from loans and deposits - inched down 0.23 percent to SR1.31 billion, the bank said. Loans declined 1 percent to SR90 billion, while deposits rose 4 percent to SR124 billion, it said. Earnings per share for the first quarter reached SR1.41, up from SR1.33 a year earlier, Samba said. Net income from non-lending operations jumped SR680 million in the first
