Reports
SocGen Posts Strong Q3 Results
The French bank reported that it had slashed provisioning and had strong revenues across most of its divisions. The results came with the news that its current CFO is stepping down this month.
French bank Societe Generale published better-than-expected third-quarter earnings on Thursday, nearly doubling net income to €1.6 billion ($1.85 billion) for the quarter. The group reported that revenue was up 14.9 per cent to €6.67 billion above analysts' forecasts, notably helped by strong performances in its Financing and Advisory division (up 31 per cent), and Global Markets and Retail banking.
SocGen separately announced that its chief financial officer William Kadouch-Chassaing will be stepping down at the end of the month. He will be replaced by the current deputy CFO, Claire Dumas, on 1 December. Dumas joined the bank in 1998 and is a former auditor at Deloitte.
Income for the Asset and Wealth Management business totalled €255 million in the third quarter, a rise of 21 per cent year-on-year and up by 6 per cent the first nine months of 2021.
Private Banking also stood out, with revenues up by 20 per cent year-on-year to €184 million. The bank said the business has benefitted from a favourable market and strong commercial activity.
France’s third largest bank reported net inflows of €6.8 billion for the first nine months, and assets under management were up overall by 11 per cent to €127 billion, reflected across all regions.
After faster-than-expected economic recoveries have lowered bad-loan provisioning across many banks, SocGen reported slashing its provisioning by 62.2 per cent for the quarter. At the end of September, the bank’s capitalization stood 440 basis points above regulatory limits, with a CET-1 ratio of 13.4 per cent. This was partly due to a €470 million share buyback programme scheduled to start this week and complete by the year end.
Group chief executive Frédéric Oudéa, said that the quarter reflected strong commercial and financial performances across the businesses, and cost-income ratio improvements. The group has also continued to benefit from "the quality of its loan portfolio, with a low cost of risk combined with a continued very prudent provisioning policy,” he said.
