10/31/2024

speaker
Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the presentation of the BNP Paribas Third Quarter 2024 results with Jean-Laurent Bonafé, Group Chief Financial Officer, and Lars Maschineel, Group Chief Financial Officer. For your information, this conference call is being recorded. Supporting slides are available on BNP Paribas IR website, invest.bnpparibas.com. During today's presentation, you will be able to ask your questions by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to ask a question, please make sure to be in a quiet area to maximize audio quality. I would like now to hand the call over to Jean-Laurent Bonafé, Group Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

speaker
Lars Maschineel

Thank you. So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the presentation of our third quarter 24 results. As usual, at the end of the presentation, Lars and I will be pleased to take your questions. So moving to the core of the presentation with slide three, our net income group share reached 2.9 billion euros in the third quarter of 2024. This was a very strong quarter for BNP Paribas, driven by good performance across our operational divisions. Our revenues are up 2.7% compared to the third quarter 23 on a distributable basis. All in all, an outstanding quarter for CAB, which was up 9% year on year, with global markets leading the way. Meanwhile, CPBS generated stable revenues, excluding revenues from used car disposals at Arval. We see positive momentum in the commercial and personal banking activities in the Eurozone, France being a good illustration with a 1.6% increase in revenues in third quarter 24 versus third quarter 23. And we'll get back to this in the next slide. IPS was a strong performer, up 4.9%, supported by insurance and asset management. This quarter, operating costs were up 1.7%. Cost growth was efficiently targeted at supporting our development, and we were able to sustain positive shows of one point for the quarter. We are on track to deliver promised operational efficiency measures. 655 million euros of savings have been achieved as of the end of September, with a further 345 million euros expected in the fourth quarter, adding up to 1 billion euros for the full year 24. Our gross operating income is up 4.2% year on year at 4.7 billion euros and operating income up 4.1% at almost 4 billion euros as an illustration of the performance of the quarter. Moving on to the cost of risk, it remains stable at 32 bps and demonstrates the strength of our credit portfolio through the cycle. As a result, in third quarter, Our net income reached a solid level of 2.1 billion euros, up 5.9% year-on-year, and our EPS was up plus 11.2%. Our financial structure is strong with our core equity tier 1 at 12.7%, which includes a 30-bit impact due to the prudential consolidation of Aval on July 1st, as previously announced. On the second half of 24, planned securitization program will be positioned in fourth quarter 24. The main part of the capital redeployment of Bank of the West is now completed with the project of acquiring AXA Investment Management by Cardiff, which would strategically reposition IPS within the group. Overall, we have redeployed 150 BIPs, of which 60 BIPs were returned to shareholders in the form of share buybacks, and 90 BIPs were reinvested in a disciplined manner within the group in activities with high potential for value creation. Forty percent of that 90 BIPs was devoted to IPS businesses, insurance, asset management, and wealth management, out of which 25 BIPs is related to the Cardiff AXA-EM project with its major strategic initiative focused on fee-driven capital-led businesses. It will boost the IPS division, drive integration across its various businesses, and significantly increase the potential for synergies between them. It will also strengthen synergies with CIB and CPBS, further enhancing our already impressive ability to cross-sell and enhance our share of clients. We will hold a deep dive dedicated specifically to this major strategic initiative after the closing. Moving on to slide four, we confirm our 24 trajectory from a revenue, Joe's effect, cost of risk, and net income perspective. Let me share with you the analysis of our business drivers. CIB, we continue to gain market share while retaining a balanced allocation of capital. The very good third quarter results illustrate this. Within CPBS, the outlook for commercial banks in the Eurozone is improving thanks to a favorable shift in the interest rate environment related to the steepening of the yield curve, the stabilization of loans and deposits, and the gradual reduction of the impact of headwinds on business growth. We're already seeing a slight positive trend in third quarter, which should continue in fourth quarter, then in 25 and 26. In this sense, third quarter constitutes an inflection point. In 25, the headwinds will no longer bite into business growth, and in 26, all other things being equal, we should benefit from tailwinds. Moving to ARVAL, It has experienced a major impact from the normalization of fuel cap prices, which is greater this quarter and is likely to last until fourth quarter 25. However, Arval is intrinsically doing well with a sustained growth in volume, supporting a significant increase in financial and service margins. Within IPS, third quarter results illustrate a strong momentum for asset management and insurance. With that, I would like now to hand over to Lars, who will take you through the group and divisional results.

speaker
Lars

Thank you, Jean-Laurent. Very fine afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. If I may, I suggest that you move to slide 7, which contains more details on the P&L and a clear demonstration of our solid operating performance this quarter. As already mentioned by Jean-Laurent, our performance in terms of gross operating income is quite strong, up 4.2%, as well in terms of operating income at almost 4 billion euros. This can also be seen at the bottom line being up 5.9%, clocking in 2.9 billion euros, which marks a nice progression year on year. Actually, the level of net income in the third quarter is the highest that BNP Paribas has recorded in the third quarter. Now, before looking at the solid performance across divisions, a quick review of the exceptional items this quarter. Basically, there is no review. They are quite limited and similar to last quarter or a year ago. And so this is a further illustration of the strong intrinsic quality of our results. If with this, I can ask you to move to slide eight and review the performance by our operating divisions, and you will see an overall performance that confirms our trajectory. So overall, group revenues up 2.7% year on year. So if we walk through the divisions, first of all, strong revenue growth at CIB, up 9% year on year, and driven by a very strong performance in each of the three business lines. And this, leveraging on deep client relationships and an increase in demand for financing. Global banking, a leader in NMEA, is up 5.9%. supported by capital market activities, which are at the heart of the group's originate and distribute strategy. And if you look at this capital market, which is really close to what the corporations need, it is up 12.4% in EMEA. We are already positioning ourselves in what we believe is a fast-growing market as corporate client financing needs, for example, for climate, technology, transition, bringing back technologies and the likes, and these financing needs are unprecedented. We also believe the potential acceleration of the capital market union or elements thereof in Europe offers strong growth opportunities, both for Europe and for ourselves to assist in it. So also, if we stay within that department, there is a solid 5.7% increase from transaction banking in the Americas, driven by trade finance and a good performance by cash management in Asia. If we then go to the second division within CIB, global markets, activities were up 12.4%, driven by a strong performance on one hand in equity and prime services, up 13.2%, And in particular, it was strong in prime and stable in overall equity derivatives. So that's EPS. Then secondly, the performance in FIC was also robust, up 11.8%, thanks to strong activities in basically all letters of FIC, maybe bar commodities. So strong in credit rates and forex. Then the third one is security services, up 6.6%, and this driven by a sustained growth in net interest margin as well as higher client cash balances. So good business acquisitions in security services was demonstrated by new mandates, higher outstanding, and our ability to assist clients through market volatility. So that's the first division. If you now look at the second one, CPBS. It had a stable quarter, excluding a negative impact of the used car prices with Arval. So if we start within CPBS, so you have two main divisions, and if we start with the commercial and personal banking businesses in the Eurozone, the third quarter showed an improvement, as mentioned by Jean-Laurent. We are currently at a tipping point, as on one hand, side deposits stopped moving, and loans to individuals show positive trends. That's one thing. And second thing, the headwinds are becoming less punitive for business growth. As you can see, I mean, I'm not going to comment it, but if you browse to slide 21, you can clearly see that it's tapering off from a 150 million impact negative the first quarter, and it's coming down to 63 in the third quarter. And so if I look at it, I think the first nine months for our commercial banks in the Eurozone, they are basically up 2.1%. If I look through these headwinds, and these headwinds, as I said, they will basically be gone and out of the base going forward. And the 2.1%, if I look specifically at the third quarter, it is up 0.8%. And we saw some improvements in the net interest revenues and fees and funds as an illustration of the quality of our franchise, and we also saw it in Italy and Luxembourg. So overall, the pre-tax income of our zero balance increased by 10.8% with a positive Jaws effect and a low level of cost of risk at 19 basis points. So all this, what you see in the commercial and personal banking in the Eurozone, is biding very well to crystallize the pivot and deliver growth going forward. There is one point of attention, that is Belgium, where we have been adapting to, I would call, a significant market disruption that could continue for a few quarters. And this, in particular, witnessed through intense competition on loans and deposits that is weighing on margins. From our stance, our commercial strategy created in response to the market reaction to state bonds, which are maturing in September or have matured in September, is to provide customers with medium-term certainty rather than matching the short-term high-rate products in the market. And this, on one hand, preserves margins for the bank. and retains and protects clients, especially in an environment of declining base rate environment. So this strategy contributed to a 4.4% growth in customer deposits and off-balance sheet assets at the end of the third quarter compared to a year ago. So that basically synthesizes the commercial banks. And if we now go to the second part in it, which is the specialized businesses. They are moving downwards 5.7% year-on-year. If we look at it in detail, if we start with Arvan, we are adapting to the continued normalization of used car prices. These are basically down 35% used car prices year-on-year. However, the organical business growth is doing well and is basically up 15% with financial and service margins continue to grow at a healthy pace. The expansion of the finance fleet will keep on supporting organic growth with further gains in individual customer fleet, added by the development of partnerships with automakers, as you are well aware. If you now move to personal finance, we see positive trends in revenues in the core parameter, so the core parameter is up 1.5% year-on-year, as an illustration of the successful implementation of the strategic plan. The business could continue to benefit from the favorable shift in the interest rate environment with the resulting decrease in refinancing costs and a positive effect on volumes. Last, a stable performance this quarter from new digital businesses and personal investments. So that's two out of three. Let's look at IPS. As you've seen, the division performed very well this quarter. with revenues up 4.9%, driven in particular by asset management and insurance. If we look at asset management, up 7.9%, driven by a strong growth in assets with a supportive market environment and strong inflow driving fees up. Then there is insurance, up 6.4%, driven by good performance in France and a more favorable rate environment. The business momentum was good, with a strong increase in savings, growth as it inflows, which were up 13% year-on-year, as well as a strong growth in protection, driven by our ability to offer a full range of products. And then the third part is wealth management. Revenues were stable, compared on one hand to a high base a year ago, and the impact of the interest rate environment compensated for by good momentum in fees. So that's basically what I wanted to say about the dimensions and the divisions. So if I can take you to slide nine. And here we wanted to show our diversified and well-integrated and rather unique model as a growth engine through economic cycles. So on one hand, we have platforms at scale that are the key foundations of our business model. These platforms allow us to grow at marginal cost thanks to efficient production facilities. They also feed our client franchise with a very broad range of products as illustrated by our significant cross-selling activities. Indeed, you know, cross-selling is core of what we do and it's a key component of our group revenues. So it generates one-third, 32% of the total, representing roughly 7 billion euros in the first half, up 5%, which is 2.7 times more than the group revenues, which increased by 1.7%. So this is really a core element unique to BNP Paribas. It is strong in all our client segments, with a fair representation in corporate and private banking, as well as with retail clients. In particular, IPS products represent 36% of the group cross-selling revenues in the first half, with an increase of 3%. These two figures, so 36% of cross-sell and 3% of growth, are encouraging in the context of the ongoing IPS transformation because, in particular, you see the numbers. It's 36% of the cross-sell, and IPS represents, quote-unquote, today only 12% of the group revenues. So you see the tremendous lever for these products. So thanks to our diversified and integrated model, our revenues have continuously grown at an average rate of 3% per year, so 2.7 in this quarter. So that's basically what we do with the top line. Let's now look at the evolution of the costs. So overall, we said positive jobs should cost up 1.7%, and our cost income stands at 60%. So if we look again at the divisions, CIB first. The increase in costs is reporting growth. Jaws were overall positive 0.4 points this quarter. And costs are also well contained for security services in the context of high volume growth. They're also very positive Jaws. If we go to CPBS, costs are well contained, down 1% in the commercial and personal banking in the Eurozone, and that thanks to the continuous improvements in terms of operational efficiencies. So costs are down 1.9%, driving JOLs to almost one point. Within specialized businesses, costs are down 1.3%, with positive JOLs, personal finance, given in the core perimeter, and thanks again, thanks to the adaptation plan that is underway and the implementation of new operational efficiency measures. Policy goals for leasing solutions, two points. The third division, IPS, we see contained costs in every business, either to support growth or because of faster implementation of operational efficiency measures. Hence, operating expenses are down 0.4%, with an overall strong positive JOLs of five points. And so, JOLs are positive in every business, bar real estate. So, if you stick with me for a couple of more slides, and we look at slide 11. And what you see here is that since March 2024, we have stepped up our operational efficiency program. with further cost savings of 400 million euro, resulting in a total savings over the year of 1 billion euros and 2.7 billion in a cumulative basis by the end of 2025. These additional savings are roughly split around the businesses, as you can see. As of today, out of the 1 billion planned for the year, we have achieved 655 million euros of savings and this to absorb on one hand inflation but also allow for new projects and investments that are needed to serve our customers. And so what are these kind of efficiency measures? They include, as you know, the nearshoring and offshoring and combined with the global sourcing and optimized real estate assets on top of several additional efficiencies in particular in our retail sector. If we now move on to a strong risk management culture, as mentioned also by Jean-Laurent, our present risk management, what else can I say, is illustrated by main ratios, including our provisioning rate and the rate of non-performing loans. Focusing on the third quarter, our cost of risk is stable at 32 basis points. Stable, it was also 32 basis points a quarter ago. Overall, it's a bit technical, but our stage one and two provisions is still comfortably above our cost of risk on stage two. The cost of risk over gross operating income remains low at 15% this quarter, and we have a limited exposure to the currently sensitive industries. So regarding the evolution of cost of risk by individual businesses, you can see that overall it also remains at the low level. If we did, I can ask you to turn to slide 15 on the financial structure. As of September 30th, our common equity tier 1 clocked in at 12.7%. It's a solid level, well above our 12% objective on the regulatory requirement. So where does that 12.7 come from? So it basically stems from at the end of the second quarter, we were at 13%. What happened? First of all, there's a 30 basis points impact, which we announced well up front, from the prudentially consolidating, so prudentially consolidating ARVAL in anticipation of the finalization of VAS. So that we anticipated. It is what it is. The second one, there's 20 basis points that return to the investor, so basically the dividend that we return to shareholders as we usually do. And then there is this 20 basis points of dividend is compensated by 20 basis points of capital generation. Normally, there's 20 basis points in an average quarter. It's basically 30 basis points. So there should be a generation of 10. But what you have this quarter is that the efforts of what we call originate to distribute is split over two quarters. So what I mean by that, the origination that have been going on for clients, in particular given the solid demand at the end of September, has driven up the fact that we put into our balance sheet this originated quarter. and we are in the process of distributing it. And so what we have foreseen and putting in motion in the fourth quarter is an equivalent of 10 basis points in distribution. So we basically stick a just DOTD, which is split over two quarters, so we stick to what we said, the 12.8% is our run rate. As a result, we are fully on track and confirm our CET target of 12% by the end of 2025, And this takes into consideration the remaining elements of the finalization of Basel starting, which is, of course, excluding the FRTV, but we'll be ready for that at the end of 2025. And last, our trajectory will be supported by organic capital generation and further balance sheet securitization, as we have done. I know there are other metrics like the leverage ratio. It clocked in at 4.4%, so that's fine, well above where we have to be. And the same is true for the liquidity position. You know, the 100%, we are at 124% LCR ratio. So that's basically how you see that we are well on track with the profit and with the prudential metrics. And so with this, I hand it back to Jean-Laurent to conclude the presentation.

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