PARIS (Reuters) – BNP Paribas, the eurozone’s biggest bank, saw profit more than double in the first quarter from a year ago, bolstered by the sale of its U.S. retail division while revenue beat estimates.
This allowed the French bank to beef up its capital and liquidity buffers, at a time when European lenders strive to restore confidence in a sector battered by turmoil.
Revenue of just over 12 billion euros ($13.20 billion) in the period exceeded the company’s compiled consensus of 11.7 billion as net interest income ticked higher in the usually difficult French retail market, the bank said on Wednesday.
In securities trading, revenue edged down 1.8% but still performed better than some peers including Deutsche Bank, which saw fixed-income trading decline by 17% in the first quarter.
The first quarter net income, group share amounted to 4.44 billion euros, in line with expectations, and up from 1.84 billion a year earlier.
The sale of Bank of the West, which was expected and closed in February, yielded about 2.95 billion euros ($3.25 billion) in capital gains, the French lender said, helping BNP Paribas shore up its CET 1 ratio — a key measure of financial strength — to 13.6%, up from 12.3% in the previous quarter.
($1 = 0.9093 euros)
(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain and Matthieu Prottard; Editing by Ingrid Melander, Elisa Martinuzzi)
