BNP Paribas Reports Better-Than-Expected 1st-Quarter Net Profit -- Update
May 03 2017 - 12:51AM
Dow Jones News
By Noemie Bisserbe
PARIS--French bank BNP Paribas SA (BNP.FR) reported a
better-than-expected net profit for the first quarter, aided by a
rebound in bond trading.
The Paris-based lender, France's largest listed bank by assets,
said Wednesday net profit rose 4% to 1.89 billion euros ($2.06
billion) from EUR1.81 billion a year earlier. That beat analysts'
expectations for a profit of EUR1.54 billion, according to a poll
by data provider FactSet.
Revenue rose 4% to EUR11.3 billion.
Like other U.S. and European lenders, BNP Paribas benefited from
a bond-trading boom, despite the Trump administration's failure so
far to deliver on promises to overhaul the tax code and loosen
financial regulations.
BNP Paribas's corporate and investment-bank pretax income nearly
doubled in the latest quarter to EUR778 million, bolstered by its
fixed-income platform.
The bank's international financial-services division, which
includes retail banks outside the eurozone, wealth management,
consumer finance and insurance, posted a 16% jump in pretax income
to EUR1.22 billion.
However, pretax profit for BNP's retail banks in France, Italy,
Belgium and Luxembourg fell 0.5% to EUR705 million, hurt by
persistently low interest rates.
The bank's core Tier 1 ratio, which measures its top quality
capital such as equity and retained earnings against risk-weighted
assets, rose to 11.6% in March from 11.5% in December, mainly
because of the sale of its stake in First Hawaiian Bank.
BNP Paribas is the first major French bank to report
first-quarter earnings. Societe Generale SA (GLE.FR) is set to
report results Thursday and Credit Agricole SA (ACA.FR) will report
on May 11.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 03, 2017 01:36 ET (05:36 GMT)
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