SOCGEN QUADRULES ITS PROFIT, AIMS FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENT IN PROFITABILITY
PARIS (Reuters) – Societe Generale on Thursday announced an almost quadrupling of its profit in the fourth quarter, thanks to the fall in charges linked to the pandemic and the rebound in retail banking and equity market activities.
The third bank listed in France, after BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole SA, also indicated in a press release that its profitability should continue to improve in the years to come.
Its underlying cost/income ratio – a key measure of bank profitability – would be between 66% and 68% this year, compared to 67% in 2021 and 74.6% in 2020. Beyond 2022, this coefficient will decline year after year, the bank said.
“The group is therefore confidently embarking on the year 2022,” said Frédéric Oudéa, CEO of SocGen, in a press release.
In the fourth quarter, net profit was 1.79 billion euros, compared to 470 million euros a year earlier, with the cost of risk, reflecting provisions for bad debts, down 87.5 %, at 86 million euros.
Net banking income (NBI) increased by 13.4% to 6.62 billion euros, thanks to an 11% growth in retail banking revenues in France and an increase of nearly 23% in turnover. of stock market activities.
SocGen also declared that the financing and consulting activities had achieved the best annual performance in their history last year with a record income of 2.92 billion euros (+ 14.8%), including 814 million in the fourth. trimester.
Societe Generale announced last week that it had entered into exclusive negotiations for the takeover of the retail banking activities of the Dutch ING in France, an operation which would boost the growth of its online banking subsidiary Boursorama.
The bank has rationalized its activities in recent years in order to improve its profitability and financial solvency, in particular by selling activities in Central and Eastern Europe and by refocusing its corporate and investment banking.
It plans to cut 3,700 jobs between 2023 and 2025 as part of the merger of its two French retail banking networks.
(Jean-Michel Bélot, edited by Marc Angrand)