Union National Bank, 50 per cent owned by the Abu Dhabi government, posted a 42 per cent rise in fourth-quarter net profit on Tuesday.

The fifth-largest lender in the emirate by assets reported a net profit of Dh436 million ($118.7 million) in the final three months of 2014, up from Dh306 million a year earlier, a bourse filing said.

Four analysts polled by Reuters forecast an average profit of Dh 442.7 million.

Full-year net profit for 2014 was Dh2.02 billion, a rise of 16 per cent from 2013.

The bank said its board of directors proposed a cash dividend of Dh0.25 per share for 2014. That compared with a cash dividend of Dh0.14 per share for the previous year, according to Thomson Reuters data. – Reuters