(BFM Stock Exchange) – The Defense Bank remains one of the two large boxes of the CAC 40 in 2025, with an increase of almost 80% since the start of the year. Analysts think that the bank still has the field to progress. Boursobank’s financial power must be one of the large engines for the title to rise more.

Undoubtedly, Société Générale is the big stock card of the year on the CAC 40. The action of the Defense Bank takes 77.8% over the whole of 2025 ahead of a short Thales head (+77.4%);

But where the company managed by Patrice Caine benefits from the enthusiasm of investors for all European defense titles – the German Rheinmetall takes 180% in 2025 – Société Générale owes the bulk of its outperformance to its own forces.

Since the third quarter of 2024, the establishment has chained good publications. The 2024 annual results, presented in February, were followed by a leap in the action of 13.2%. Those of the first quarter, delivered in April, led to a less flamboyant market reaction (+3.75%). But these accounts have reinforced the (largely) positive opinions of analysts.

“Société Générale initiatives in terms of cost control and capital management are bearing fruit,” said Royal Bank of Canada in May. In addition, Société Générale is very clearly the Bank of the CAC 40 which had best successful this last season of the results, BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole its delivering relatively disappointing copies.

>> Access our exclusive graphic analyzes, and enter into the confidence of the trading portfolio

A catalyst

Despite the good stock market course of the company led by Slawomir Krupa, analysts still see potential for the title. Eleven of the 17 design offices covering the title advise to buy it, according to Investing.com, and only one recommends selling it.

“Despite an increase of 77% of the action and an outperformance of 50% compared to the (pan -European) stoxx Europe 600 banks index, the action is exchanged at multiple lows of 6.3 times the benefits expected in 2026 and 0.64 times the ‘tangible book value’ (the accounting value of its active America.

Motors are identified to carry out the action more. Bank of America quotes, for example, potential shareholdings in the second half of 2025 or even the upward revision of its objectives for 2025 or 2026. Société Générale aims a return to tangible equity, a measure of the company’s profitability for its shareholders, more than 8% in 2025 and from 9% to 10% in 2026. 10.7% for 2026.

Another catalyst often returns to analyzes of design offices: Boursobank (ex-Boursorama). Holding since 2002 by Société Générale, the online bank that has accumulated customers, has been profitable for two years now.

From around 600,000 customers in 2014, its base increased to 7.2 million units in 2024 and is expected to exceed 8 million this year.

Jefferies devoted a note, published this Friday, June 20, in Boursobank, renewing its advice on purchase on action and its price objective at 55 euros. Jefferies judges that online bank remains “a key element in the investment thesis on Société Générale”.

Profitable despite significant acquisition costs

The design office has passed the latest publications from the online bank. Jefferies notes, on the basis of these documents, that Boursobank continued to invest massively in the acquisition of customers (by offering advantages, for example) these costs having increased around 245 million euros in 2024.

This increased the customer base by 1.3 million units last year, and 458,000 in the first quarter of 2025. And despite these high acquisition costs, Boursobank has been, therefore, profitable for two years.

Boursobank has also improved its operational lever so that the operating coefficient, which reports operating expenses to net banking products (that is, income) has decreased. The operating coefficient fell to 49% in 2024 after 52% in 2023 and an average of 88% over the period from 2017 to 2022, underlines Jefferies.

The design office notes in passing that the bank staff stabilize and that Boursobank manages to manage around 7.6 million customers with around 1,000 FTE (full -time equivalents) against 10 million customers for more than 30,000 employees in its “physical” retail bank in France (even if the services offered are obviously not the same).

More than 400 million euros in profits in 2027

All this is promising for the future. The design office expects the profits of Boursobank to increase. The online bank must, once the threshold of 8 million customers has reached, go from an investment phase in the acquisition of customers to an improvement phase of its profitability.

Consequently, customer acquisition costs will decrease. Jefferies provides costs of 100 million euros in 2026 then 80 million in 2027 after 250 million in 2025. The design office also anticipated the continuation of the operating coefficient, with a rate of 34% in 2027.

In its strategic plan presented in 2023, Société Générale expected to generate more than 300 million euros in net profit in 2026 with Boursobank. This target was based on hypotheses that turned out to be too cautious. Société Générale then thought of reaching the threshold of 8 million customers in 2026 (this should be the case in 2025) and anticipated net losses at Boursobank in 2023 and 2024 while online banking was profitable over these two years.

Jefferies anticipates a net profit of 325 million euros in 2026, with “prudent” assumptions, then 430 million euros in 2027.

Virtues underestimated by the market?

Jefferies is obviously not the only design office to highlight the importance of Boursobank in the stock market potential of Société Générale.

JPMorgan noted in February that the objectives of online banking are “widely discussed (undervalued)” by the market because Boursobank does not provide accounts as detailed as those of Société Générale.

Barclays, in January, mentioned a “switch to the profitability” of Boursobank from the second half of 2025, which will bear the growth of the Action by Société Générale.

“If Société Générale reaches its acquisition objective of 8 million Boursobank customers in mid-201025, assuming that the bank does not increase this objective once again (at 10 million?) But goes to profitability as expected, we can expect customer integration costs to normalize suddenly (more special offers registering costs, reduction in marketing costs), which, according to our estimates would lead to a variation in net profit of 30 million euros per quarter and 125 million euros on an annual basis “, developed the British establishment.

The independent AlphaValue design office cites its stock market as “one of the levers of efficiency and growth” of the retail bank of Société Générale in France.