SINGAPORE - DBS chief executive officer Piyush Gupta has gained about $2.7 million after selling 75,000 of his shares in the bank, according to a filing on the Singapore Exchange on May 7. The transaction was carried out on May 3 at $35.70 apiece.

After the sale, which accounted for about 2.7 per cent of his DBS holdings, Mr Gupta still owns 0.095 per cent, or over 2.7 million, of the bank’s ordinary shares, though not as the registered holder but under a trust.

Before the sale, he held 0.098 per cent, or close to 2.8 million shares.

Mr Gupta sold a day after he said that DBS’ net profit for 2024 will likely be able to exceed its record levels in 2023.

This was a “reasonable assumption”, given a strong first-quarter performance by South-east Asia’s largest lender, with net profit up 15 per cent to $2.95 billion for the quarter.

The bank’s first-quarter net profit beat the $2.5 billion consensus forecast in a Bloomberg survey of five analysts. Excluding integration costs for Citibank Taiwan, net profit would have been a record $2.96 billion.

DBS also posted several record numbers in the first quarter, with return on equity at 19.4 per cent and total income up 13 per cent to $5.56 billion.

Group net interest margin remained stable at 2.14 per cent, compared with 2.13 per cent in the previous quarter.

Shares of DBS fell 0.61 per cent or 22 cents to close at $35.71on May 8. THE BUSINESS TIMES