Net Income In Q3 Dipped At Societe Generale's Private Banking Arm, Revenues Rose

Tom Burroughes

7 November 2014

The private banking arm of Societe Generale said today it logged net income of €219 million ($274 million) in the third quarter of 2014, a drop of 2.9 per cent on a year before; revenues rose 5 per cent year-on-year.

Assets under management stood at €118 billion at the end of September, rising €2.1 billion from the end of the second quarter of the year, the French banking group said in a statement.

As previously reported, the Paris-listed lender has completed its sale of its Asian private banking arm to Singapore-headquartered DBS Group, a deal that was originally inked in March this year. SocGen’s move has been seen as a sign of how some Western firms haven’t been able to earn the kind of revenues or get the scale of business they have been hoping for, despite the oft-stated view that Asia represents the world’s fastest growing economic region.

Among other details, said its Lyxor asset management business reported AuM of €85.4 billion, driven by strong flows into exchange traded funds, an area in which Lyxor is the third-largest player in Europe.

Throughout the asset and wealth management arm of Societe Generale as a whole, revenues in the first nine months of 2014 were €792 million, a 0.8 per cent year-on-year decline, the firm said.

Across the entire group, the 150-year-old firm said net banking income in the quarter was €5.9 billion, down 1.8 per cent year-on-year; group net income was €836 million, up from €534 million a year before.

In recent stress tests conducted on European banks by the eurozone’s central bank and regulatory authority, Societe Generale was told that only “minor normative adjustments compared with the size of the bank”, (i.e. less than 0.1 per cent of its balance sheet), needed to be made. The accounting impact of such a change will be “neglible”, Societe Generale said.

“Commercial activity remained buoyant in retail banking networks, with significant growth in deposits in all the networks, against the backdrop of still weak credit demand in Europe, and the rapid development of banking activities on the African continent. The Financial Services to Corporates business line provided further evidence of its growth. In a sluggish market environment during the summer, Global Banking & Investor Solutions demonstrated the resilience of its client-focused model, with a good performance by Financing & Advisory and Private Banking,” it said.