We met with Sacombank management and here are our key takeaways. Despite strong loan growth and NIM expansion in 1HFY13, STB’s profit before tax reduced 15% yoy to VND1,448bn. The main reasons were likely (i) a loss from the closure of gold deposit position and (ii) big jump in its provision expenses resulted from applying stricter NPL’s recognition and classification and aggressive written-off of troublesome investment in its associate.