(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs beat expectations for third-quarter profit on Tuesday, driven by a rebound in bond sales, stock offerings and mergers and acquisitions.

The American bank’s total profit at the end of September jumped 45% to reach 2.99 billion dollars (2.74 billion euros), or 8.40 dollars per share, above the expectations of analysts who expected on 6.89 dollars in an LSEG consensus, and against 2.06 billion dollars a year ago.

“Our performance demonstrates the strength of our world-class franchise in an improving operating environment,” chief executive David Solomon said in a statement.

Investment banking fees jumped 20% year-over-year to $1.87 billion.

Leveraged financing, which refers to loans made for risky projects such as financing company buyouts, and quality activity have enabled an increase in debt underwriting.

Share subscription also increased, driven by a large number of secondary market share sales.

Revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities trading fell 12%, while equity trading increased 18%.

Goldman Sachs also benefited from favorable comparisons with the previous year, during which the bank recorded large writedowns on consumer businesses and real estate investments.

The group recorded $397 million in provisions for credit losses, compared to $7 million a year ago, due to increased losses on its credit card portfolio.

In pre-market trading on Wall Street, the stock rose more than 3%.

(Reporting Saeed Azhar in New York and Niket Nishant in Bangalore; Mara Vîlcu, editing by Augustin Turpin)

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