Unicredit recorded double profits, in the second quarter of the year, compared to analysts’ expectations: a basis that allows the bank led by Andrea Orcel to raise its forecasts on results for the whole of 2022, albeit marked by the well-known events in Russia: towards Moscow, Unicredit reduced the exposure by approximately 2.7 billion.
Following the “robust financial results and the more favorable interest rate environment”, the new financial guidance for 2022 expects revenues above 16.7 billion and net profit of about 4 billion, excluding Russia, explains a note. .
Meanwhile, in the first half of the year, it filed a profit of 2.28 billion. The result for the second quarter was 2.01 billion, well above the analyst consensus of 996 million. “UniCredit continued to achieve excellent results in the second quarter, achieving the best performance for the first half of the last 10 years, driven by growing profitability, solid organic generation of capital and reduction of the cost base despite the impact of inflation”, CEO Orcel said commenting on the numbers. “Our CET1 ratio further strengthened to 15.73 per cent, reflecting the excellent asset quality, with a cost of risk of only 10 basis points, excluding Russia,” he adds.
Unicredit’s exposure to Russia was reduced overall by about 2.7 billion, through proactive and disciplined actions, while Russia’s Risk Weighted Assets (“RWAs”) were reduced by about 2.7 billion. that the bank is committed to maintaining a progressive de-risking approach.
The Italian bank asked the ECB to authorize the second tranche of the Buy-Back 2021 program, for an amount of 1 billion euros.