PARIS (Reuters) -Société Générale reported on Wednesday results on Wednesday than expected for the first quarter of the year 2025 thanks in particular to the rebound of the retail bank in France and the performance of the actions professions.

The title Société Générale gained more than 5.0% at 46.21 euros around 7:15 a.m. GMT on the Paris Stock Exchange, while the CAC 40 took at the same time 0.49%.

The third French bank in terms of market capitalization has published a net profit of the group more than doubled over one year at 1.61 billion euros, exceeding the average of 1.21 billion euros of the 14 estimates of analysts compiled by the company.

Its net banking product increased by 6.6% over one year to 7.1 billion euros over the first three months of the year while the consensus awaited 6.92 billion euros.

Société Générale said it was ahead of its targets for 2025 with in particular an operating coefficient at 65%, compared to less than 66% targeted, management fees down 7.6% over one year to 4.6 billion euros and profitability of tangible equity (ROTE) of 11%, against 4.1% in T1 2024 and an objective of more than 8%.

Analysts welcomed the results of the French bank in the first notes addressed to customers on Wednesday, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods evoking “rather good” results while Jefferies analysts judged that the publication “cohabited all the boxes with an improvement in the results in all divisions”.

“The current environment brings its share of uncertainty and our trajectory will not always be perfectly linear. But our CAP is clear and you can count on us to continue to progress sustainably with consistency and predictability,” said Slawomir Krupa, managing director of Société Générale, during a presentation to journalists.

Confidence for walking activities

This performance was notably made possible by the retail banking division in France, private banking and insurance whose net banking product (PNB) increased by 14.1% over one year to 2.3 billion euros while its group share of the group was multiplied by more than 13 to 421 million euros.

Net interest revenues jump by 28.4% over one year to 1.06 billion euros, while management fees drop from 9.4% to 1.57 billion euros. The operating coefficient thus increased from 85.7% in the first quarter of 2024 to 68.1% in the first quarter of 2025, after 73.7% in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The Bank of Large Customers and Investor Solutions also brought the group with an PNB up 10% over one year to 2.89 billion euros and a group share of the group up 22.8% to 856 million euros. Actions activities, carried “by a strong dynamic in flow products and products listed”, display a record level with an increase of 21.8% over one year at 1.06 billion euros.

“Market volatility has been rather favorable so far for our market activities and we remain confident in the performance of these activities for the coming months,” said Slawomir Krupa.

Only income, rate and change (FIC) activities are dropped to 2.4% over one year to 698 million euros “due to the drop in customer activity on rate investment solutions and margins compression in financing activities”.

(Written by Bertrand de Meyer, with Mathieu Rosemain, edited by Kate Entringer and Augustin Turpin)

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