(News Bulletin 247) – KBC on Thursday announced a sharper-than-expected rise in its second-quarter profit, while revising its net interest income target for 2023 down slightly, which dragged its stock down.
The Belgian bancassurance group still expects to record revenue of around €11.15 billion this year, but has lowered its net interest income target, now expected at around €5.6 billion instead of 5.7 billion euros previously.
In a press release, it justifies its caution by the rise in costs on the required reserves held with central banks and by the increase in the costs of subordination and financing of its activities dedicated to large companies and institutional investors (wholesale).
In total, its operating expenses are still expected to be around 4.75 billion euros over the financial year.
These forecasts overshadowed its strong performance published for the second quarter, since net profit reached 966 million euros, against 887 million euros a year earlier.
For comparison, the consensus of analysts was only expecting a profit of 863 million.
KBC has also decided to redistribute 1.3 billion euros of excess capital via a share buyback program which should start ‘as soon as possible’ and end by August 2024.
Following this publication considered mixed, the action fell by 3.8% around 9:50 a.m., signing by far the largest drop in a globally stable BEL 20 index.
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