Société Générale, the French bank most famed for its notorious rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel, saw its profits drop by a fifth in the first three months of the year on the back of much weaker investment banking and the sell-off of some of its more risky assets at a loss.
But despite the 41% fall in investment bank profits year-on-year to €351 million (£286 million) SocGen said this represented a solid recovery on the second half of 2011.
It said this was due to the second round of cheap bank financing from the European Central Bank, the success of Greek debt restructuring and signs of economic recovery in the United States.
Domestic French retail banking profits declined by 7%, which chief executive Frédéric Oudéa described as a “resilient” performance.
Overall the bank’s post-tax profit for the quarter fell 20% to €732 million. It said that it had offloaded €4.9 billion of collateralised debt obligations and other risky assets in the three months.
Oudéa said he was happy that the bank could hit its core tier 1 capital ratio target of 9% by the end of 2013 as demanded by international regulators without having to raise fresh funds from shareholders.
