Intesa lifts profit goal after stronger than expected quarter
Shares extend gains, up 3% on better than forecast results
Sees room to approve share buybacks at year-end
Hedging strategy helps it to offset peaking market rates
Adds CEO quote in paragraph 2, details on capital in paragraph 3, analyst comment in 15; Russia details in 17
By Valentina Za
MILAN, July 30 (Reuters) -Italy's biggest bank Intesa Sanpaolo ISP.MI on Tuesday raised its profit outlook, after posting stronger than expected quarterly earnings and signalling additional investor rewards ahead.
"We have a lot of excess capital and there is a lot of room for future buybacks," CEO Carlo Messina told analysts.
Intesa, which pays out 70% of profit in cash, decides on share buybacks, which have become bank investors' favoured remuneration tool, only at the end of each year.
It recently launched a 1.7 billion euro share buyback on 2023 earnings while still strengthening core capital slightly in the second quarter to 13.5% of assets.
With net lending income still rising despite euro zone interest rates having peaked and a strategy to grow net fees bearing fruit, Intesa posted a net profit of 2.47 billion euros, above a Reuters consensus forecast of 2.28 billion ($2.5 billion).
Shares extended gains after the release to rise 3% by 1313 GMT.
Intesa expects net profit in 2024 and 2025 to surpass 8.5 billion euros, having previously guided for a net income above 8 billion euros.
It plans to approve an interim dividend of 3 billion euros in October, it said.
Second-quarter revenues came in at 6.86 billion euros, above an average 6.54 billion analyst forecast.
Unlike its direct rival UniCredit CRDI.MI, Intesa owns its own asset management and insurance business. It said net fees rose 5% quarter-on-quarter to 2.27 billion euros, and were up 7% from a year before.
Despite a European Central Bank rate cut in June with more expected to follow in coming months, Intesa increased income linked to the gap between lending and deposit rates in the second quarter from the previous one, thanks in part to its hedging strategy.
At 4 billion euros, the net interest income (NII) was up 12% yearly and the best second quarter figure ever. NII is expected to total 15.5 billion euros in the full year
But the bank is also working to grow sales of savings products as the boost from higher rates fizzles out. Intesa has grouped its wealth management activities into a single division and set up a committee headed by the CEO to drive net fees.
In a note titled "Look at me!", Citi analysts said Intesa beat expectations on both fees and NII.
Net inflows into assets Intesa manages on behalf of customers totalled 1 billion euros in the second quarter, the bank said, highlighting Italian savers may have had enough of government bonds after buying some 100 billion euros last year.
Intesa, which unlike UniCredit is not repatriating profit from its Russian business, said it booked a 56 million euro charge in the second quarter to offset the contribution to net income from Russia.
(1 = 0.9231 euros)
Reporting by Valentina Za
Editing by Keith Weir and David Evans
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