UniCredit says its second-quarter profits grew by 8 percent as the Italian bank pushes reforms aimed at raising capital and cutting costs.
The bank, Italy’s biggest by assets, on Tuesday reported net profit of 1 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in the period, compared with 945 million euros in 2017.
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The bank said it reduced its provisions for bad loans by a quarter, to 504 million euros, as total revenues declined by 4.3 percent to just under 5 billion euros on lower net interest and trading income. It said it had closed 58 branches in the quarter, nearly completing its target of 944 closures.
The bank’s Core Tier 1 ratio, a measure of its health, was 12.5 percent, hurt by the impact of higher sovereign debt costs.
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This story has been corrected to give last year’s figure as 945 million, not billion.
