LONDON â€" The French bank BNP Paribas reported better-than-expected earnings in the third quarter despite lower overall revenue and a nearly 11 percent decline in its investment-banking business due to a “lackluster†economic environment.
BNP, France’s largest bank, said Thursday that its profit rose 2.4 percent to 1.36 billion euros, or $1.86 billion, up from a profit of 1.33 euros in the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell 4.2 percent to €9.29 billion.
The bank benefited from cost cutting as its operating expenses were down 2.1 percent to €6.43 billion. BNP said the quarter included a one-time benefit from its restructuring efforts of €145 million.
Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected BNP to post a third-quarter profit of about €1.32 billion.
The bank made its profit “thanks to the good resilience of its revenues, the ongoing containment of its costs and the decline of its cost of risk,†said Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, the bank’s chief executive.
In its home market, its French retail bank saw revenue rise 1.3 percent to €1.73 billion, with deposits increasing 3.2 percent in the quarter.
Like many of its peers, BNP said revenue was down in its investment bank due to lower client activity in its fixed-income business. Fixed-income revenue declined 27.1 percent to €780 million.
Revenue overall in the investment bank declined 10.7 percent to €2.03 billion, down from €2.38 billion in the same quarter in 2012.
For the first nine months of the year, BNP said its profit declined 22.2 percent to €4.7 billion, down from €6.05 billion in the prior-year period. Revenue declined 1.4 percent to €29.3 billion.
The prior nine-month period reflected the sale of its 28.7 percent stake in the real-estate firm Klépierre to Simon Property Group for about €1.5 billion.
The bank said its core Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of a bank’s ability to weather financial disturbances, was 10.8 percent by the end of the third quarter, up from 9.5 percent at the end of the prior year’s quarter.
