CLOSE Brothers will be hoping to draw a line under a difficult year when it reveals its full year results on Thursday.

Shares in the bank are down over 20 per cent in the year so far after it revealed in January that it was setting aside funds for bad loans in Novitas, the legal-finance specialist it acquired in 2017.

At its half year results in March, the firm set aside £100m to cover bad loans from Novitas, dragging its adjusted operating profits down 90 per cent to £12.6m.

The firm reported a small rise in its loan book and inflows to its asset management arm in May.

The consensus forecast is for pretax profit for the year to be £108m, down from £233m a year ago. The bigger question will be whether Close Brothers can convince investors it is on track for a better year next year.

Analysts are looking for profit to rise to £226m next year and AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould said they will "dig behind the headlines to see if the trends at the individual operations support that view".

(c) 2023 City A.M., source Newspaper