BNP Paribas posts €2.4bn second quarter profit

BNP Paribas outshone Germany's Deutsche Bank and much of Wall Street for another quarter, posting a standout performance in equity derivatives.

Second-quarter profit was €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion), the Paris-based bank said on Friday, surpassing the €1.91 billion average estimate of six analysts compiled by Bloomberg.

Equity and prime services revenue jumped 26 per cent amid surging demand for derivative products, while provisions for bad debt fell.

Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, BNP Paribas’s chief executive officer, is one of the few European bank bosses investing to build investment-bank revenue, aiming to make France’s largest lender one of the top three trading and corporate-banking players across the continent.

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Home turf

Long a leader in equity derivatives and structured products, BNP is targeting Deutsche Bank's home turf in Germany, as well as the UK, US and Asia.

Fixed-income, commodities and currencies revenue fell 16 per cent from the year-earlier quarter, BNP said, citing “low business activity in all the segments” compared to more favourable environment a year earlier.

But, thanks to the performance in equity derivatives, overall revenue from BNP’s global markets division fell only 2.3 per cent to €1.52 billion, just above the €1.47 billion average of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

- Bloomberg