Financial Results
Private Banking Net Income Rises At Societe Generale; Shrugs Off Asia PB Disposal
AuM inflows for the private banking arm of Societe Generale partly offset the impact of its sale of the Asian private banking business to DBS last year.
The private banking arm of Societe Generale logged net banking income of €815 million ($924 million) last year, a rise of 2.1 per cent on a year earlier. The bank issued a broadly upbeat set of figures for its private bank, reflecting on a year when it sold its Asian operations.
The asset and wealth management segment of the Paris-listed banking group said it logged net banking income of €1.038 billion last year, down slightly from €1.072 billion a year earlier; net income was €218 million, from €271 million, it said in a statement.
Private banking assets under management stood at €108 billion at the end of 2014, up from €84 billion at the end of 2013; the bank said there had been an inflow of €4.2 billion last year, partly offsetting last March’s sale, completed later in the year, of the Asian private banking business to Singapore-headquartered DBS.
Last year, SocGen embarked on restructuring its French private banking client relationship model, also developing a new offering in countries such as Croatia, it said in a statement yesterday.
Group results
For the banking and investment business as a whole, SocGen said net banking income was €26.3 billion, a 5 per cent year-on-year increase; operating costs fell 1.9 per cent from a year earlier. The net cost of risk fell sharply, down 25.2 per cent from 2013. The group had a fully loaded Basel 3 CET1 ratio – a measure of its capital strength – of 10.1 per cent, up from 10 per cent on a year before.
The banking group, like some of its European peers, is reporting at a time when there has been, and continues to be, uncertainty in the eurozone and further afield, such as in Ukraine and Russia.
SocGen said its figures included -€725 million of non-recurring costs relating to the refocusing of its consumer finance business at the end of last year and goodwill write-downs on international retail banking and financial services activities in Russia.
The bank is proposing to pay a €1.2 per share dividend in cash.
