Thus Andrea Orcel, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit, commented on the bank’s quarterly report, which has just been released.
Piazza Gae Aulenti announced that it closed the first quarter of 2023 with an “extraordinary net income of €2.1 billion, RoTE2 at 20.4% and €3.4 billion of organically generated capital”.
“For the ninth consecutive quarter, UniCredit has achieved excellent financial results – said Andrea Orcel, based on what emerges from the bank’s press release – improving the level of profitability and distribution thanks to the ability to unleash the Group’s intrinsic value”.
Orcel noted, “The record first-quarter net income of €2.1 billion was achieved thanks to double-digit growth in net revenues, supported by extremely strong net interest income and a further reduction of costs, which generated a positive operating leverage”.
Furthermore, continued the CEO of UniCredit Andrea Orcel, “we continued to organically generate a high amount of capital which allowed us to be among the leaders of the sector with a CET1 ratio of 16.05%, already considering the entire distribution related to 2022 of €5.25 billion and the cash dividend accrued in the first quarter of €0.7 billion”.
“Our liquidity profile is solid and the quality of the assets in the portfolio is high. The improvement in the macroeconomic outlook and interest rates, the positive business performance, our ongoing transformation and the strengthened lines of defense have allowed us to increase the guidance for 2023 on the main metrics”.
Orcel stressed as a result that “we expect net income in excess of €6.5 billion and increased distribution to shareholders of at least €5.75 billion”.