The logo of Italian international banking group UniCredit stands on the facade of the group headquarters, located in the Porta Nuova district, as seen from the viewpoint of Palazzo Lombardia on September 29, 2023 in Milan, Italy.
Emanuele Cremaschi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
UniCredit raised on Tuesday its investor reward guidance for the year, after posting a much higher net income than expected and further boosting capital levels.
Italy’s second biggest bank said net profit for the January-March period was 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion), above the average of 2.13 billion forecast in a company-compiled analyst consensus.
In the full year, net income is expected to be above 8.5 billion euros, it said, having previously guided for a 2024 net profit “broadly in line” with a 2023 result of 8.6 billion net of a tax asset writeup.
UniCredit said it was raising its distribution guidance for 2024 to stand in line with 2023, when it paid out net profit to shareholders in full. Earlier, it had indicated it would distribute 90% of earnings.
Core capital, a key measure of a bank’s financial strength, rose to 16.2% of risk-weighted assets from 15.9% at the end of last year, surpassing expectations.
CEO Andrea Orcel, a former UBS investment banker who arrived at UniCredit in 2021, securing in April another three-year mandate, has focused UniCredit on activities that maximize returns from capital deployed and delivered outsized paybacks to investors, mostly through share buybacks.
