(Reuters) – BNP Paribas reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter results on Thursday, impacted by a series of exceptional charges and a weakening of activities linked to consumer credit and commercial real estate, driving the first French bank to revise downwards some of its objectives for 2025.

The group’s net profit in the fourth quarter recorded a drop of 50% year-on-year, to 1.07 billion euros, below analysts’ estimates who were counting on average 1.74 billion euros, according to a consensus compiled by BNP Paribas.

The bank, which has cash of more than 7 billion euros after the sale of its US retail operations last year, also announced an 18% increase in the dividend, to 4.60 euros. in cash, as well as a share buyback program of 1.05 billion euros.

The difference in BNP’s results with forecasts is partly explained by the constitution of a provision of 645 million euros to cover “net charges for risk on financial instruments”, half of this amount corresponding to a dispute over long-standing regarding mortgage loans in Poland.

The group’s net banking income in the fourth quarter increased by 0.1% to 10.9 billion euros, again below the expectations of analysts who expected on average 11.4 billion euros.

BNP also revised downwards its ROTE (return on tangible equity) outlook, indicating that it would not be able to achieve its 12% target before 2026 due to “various decisions by public authorities”, including the new requirements of the European Central Bank in terms of reserve requirements.

The group now anticipates a ROTE of between 11.5% and 12% in 2025 and has also reduced its target for the average annual growth rate of group net profit over the period 2022-2025 to around 8%, compared to more than 9%. previously.

(Report Mathieu Rosemain, Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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