CREDITANSTALT SEES HIGHER 1987 DIVIDEND Creditanstalt-Bankverein <CABV.VI> is likely to raise its 1987 dividend from the 1986 payment of 12 pct of share capital, deputy general-director Guido Schmidt-Chiari said. The 1985 dividend was 10 pct, unchanged from the previous year and Schmidt-Chiari noted that the parent bank's share capital had risen to 3.1 billion schillings at the end of 1986 from 2.7 billion a year earlier. Schmidt-Chiari made the forecast at a news conference when the bank announced a 1986 consolidated banking group net profit of 496.7 mln schillings for 1986, against 354.5 mln in 1985. Schmidt-Chiari did not elaborate on his dividend forecast. The banking group's consolidated balance sheet total rose to 453.4 billion schillings at year-end from 425.4 billion. General director Hannes Androsch said higher investment would lead to continuing growth in profits in future. Last year's better profits had resulted from improvements in services provided by the bank and also in profits on schilling lending. Schilling lending had grown last year and interest rate margins had also improved but remained unsatisfactory when compared with those in other countries, he said. Increased provisions for possible bad debts at home and abroad, particularly in Latin America, had lowered profits, Androsch said, but declined to give an exact figure. Schmidt-Chiari said that foreign lending business had fallen significantly due to exchange rate fluctuations, removing some 22 billion schillings from the balance sheet total. In an attempt to generate more foreign business, representative offices would be opened this year in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Moscow and Prague. Androsch welcomed government plans to abolish legal controls on foreigners buying voting shares and drawing dividends. Preference shares of state-controlled Creditanstalt rose eight schillings on the Vienna Bourse today to 2,008. Brokers said improved results had been widely expected by investors. Androsch said industrial holdings had performed better in 1986 than in previous years, giving a return on investment of 2.6 pct compared with 1.3 pct in 1985. Creditanstalt, Austria's largest bank, holds majority interests in 10 medium-sized and large Austrian companies. But he forecast its biggest industrial subsidiary, Steyr -Daimler-Puch AG <SDPV.VI> would return a 1987 result similar to the expected 1986 operating loss of 700 mln schillings.