Al Rajhi Climbs After Earnings Surpass Analysts’ Estimates

(Updates share to close in second paragraph)

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Al Rajhi Bank climbed the most in six days after Saudi Arabia’s largest publicly traded lender by market value said third-quarter profit rose 18 percent, beating analyst estimates.

The shares increased 0.7 percent, the largest gain since Oct. 9, to 69 riyals at the 3:30 p.m. close in Riyadh after trading up as much as 2.2 percent.

The bank’s net income rose to 1.94 billion riyals ($517 million) from 1.64 billion riyals, the bank said on Oct. 12. The mean estimate of six analysts was for a profit of 1.9 billion riyals, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

--Editor: Kim McLaughlin

To contact the reporter on this story: Mourad Haroutunian in Riyadh at mharoutunian@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Shaji Mathew at shajimathew@bloomberg.net