Societe Generale (SocGen) reported an underlying group net income of €1.6bn ($1.7mn) on revenues of €7.3bn ($7.7bn), up 16.6% YoY. It said that all businesses witnessed “good momentum”. Its French Retail Banking revenues were up 6.4% YoY, International Retail Banking & Financial Services enjoyed strong revenue growth of 19.3% and Global Banking & Investor Solutions delivered an 18% revenue jump. The bank said that its cost of risk stood at 39bp, an increase vs. Q1 2021 where it was at 21bp primarily due to the impact of the crisis in Ukraine on Russian exposure. This broke down into provision on non-performing loans (NPLs) of €313mn ($330mn) and a provision on performing loans of €248mn ($262mn). SocGen said that it had “only negligible market exposure to Russian external counterparties”. Its NPL ratio stood at 2.9% at end-March, unchanged QoQ. Its CET 1 ratio was at 12.9%, around 370bp above the minimum regulatory threshold.
SocGen’s USD 6.75% Perp was down 0.3 points to 94.65, yielding 7.9%.
Its French peer, Credit Agricole reported a fall in net income by 24% YoY to €1.3bn ($1.4bn). Its revenues stood at €9.6bn ($10.1bn), up 5.7% YoY. The bank said that its cost of risk was at 26bp, amounting to €693mn ($730mn), of which €389mn ($410mn) in provisions were attributable to Russian exposure and €195mn ($205mn) was written down due to Ukraine. CEO Philippe Brassac said, “The group, on a financial level, took the choice of prudence when it comes to provisioning, even as the level of actual risks remains low”. Corporate and investment banking (CIB) saw revenues rise 4.3%, but activity slipped 2.8% in capital markets with FICC down 9.1%, while its equities revenues jumped 40.1%. The French bank said that its exposure to Russia dropped by €1.1bn ($1.2bn) since the start of the war, and stood at €4.4bn ($4.6bn) at end-March. The group’s CET1 ratio was at 17%, a 50bp drop QoQ.
Credit Agricole’s USD 4.75% Perp was up 0.2 points 85.97, yielding 7.4%.
