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
免責聲明: XM Group提供線上交易平台的登入和執行服務,允許個人查看和/或使用網站所提供的內容,但不進行任何更改或擴展其服務和訪問權限,並受以下條款與條例約束:(i)條款與條例;(ii)風險提示;(iii)完全免責聲明。網站內部所提供的所有資訊,僅限於一般資訊用途。請注意,我們所有的線上交易平台內容並不構成,也不被視為進入金融市場交易的邀約或邀請 。金融市場交易會對您的投資帶來重大風險。
所有缐上交易平台所發佈的資料,僅適用於教育/資訊類用途,不包含也不應被視爲適用於金融、投資稅或交易相關諮詢和建議,或是交易價格紀錄,或是任何金融商品或非應邀途徑的金融相關優惠的交易邀約或邀請。
本網站的所有XM和第三方所提供的内容,包括意見、新聞、研究、分析、價格其他資訊和第三方網站鏈接,皆爲‘按原狀’,並作爲一般市場評論所提供,而非投資建議。請理解和接受,所有被歸類為投資研究範圍的相關内容,並非爲了促進投資研究獨立性,而根據法律要求所編寫,而是被視爲符合營銷傳播相關法律與法規所編寫的内容。請確保您已詳讀並完全理解我們的非獨立投資研究提示和風險提示資訊,相關詳情請點擊 這裡查看。