Bank Of Western Australia Limited

The Bank of Western Australia announced its full year result yesterday. The bank announced a total profit of $155.9m for the 12 months ended 31 December 2002 compared with last year's result of $140.4m which only included 10 months of trading activity. Annualised earnings per share fell from 31 cents to 27.8 cents and, unfortunately, the bank joined the growing flock of dividend cutters by declaring a 9.75 cent fully-franked final dividend (ex-date not available today), down from 11 cents last year. The result was plagued by bad debts in the corporate sector with BankWest seemingly having an exposure to every dodgy mining loan in the country. Overall however, much of the bad news now seems to be factored into the share price and we're upgrading our view to HOLD WHILE UNSTABLE.