Natixis has posted an increase in fourth-quarter profit, helped by higher revenues in three of its core businesses.

Natixis, the investment-banking and asset-management unit of French banking titan Groupe Caisse d’Epargne, has posted an increase in fourth-quarter profit, helped by higher revenues in three of its core businesses.

The firm’s net income rose to €206 million ($283 million) from €167 million a year earlier, Paris-based Natixis said in a statement, adding that its full-year profit reached €1 billion.

This was primarily caused by impressive performance in its savings unit, which includes asset management, insurance and private banking. Here, pretax profits jumped 19 per cent in the fourth quarter to €204 million, while asset-management revenue rose 16 per cent in the quarter to €511 million, as record asset management inflows hit €20 billion.

This resulted in total assets under management for the unit to reach €629 billion on 31 December 2013, up from €591 billion a year earlier. In addition, private banking’s assets under management expanded 8 per cent to €22.4 billion by the end of the year.

Investment-banking pretax earnings rose to €168 million in the quarter from €154 million a year earlier as costs fell 11 per cent, Natixis added.

“Our three core businesses performed dynamically in 2013, as witnessed by the increases in both our revenues and profitability. We have initiated our New Frontier strategic plan and notably obtained approval for the acquisition of BPCE Assurances and launched a program of additional cost savings,” said chief executive Laurent Mignon, when commenting on the further plans for the firm.

Earlier in 2013, Natixis set revenue targets for its three main businesses to exceed €8 billion by 2017, while seeking €75 billion of net new funds at its asset-management unit by the end of 2017 and expanding its international investment-banking sales by 10 per cent a year.

Finally, Natixis said it plans to pay a 16 cent-a-share dividend for 2013, up from 10 cent in 2012.