KBCSF - KBC Group NV (KBCSY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-05-16 08:22:08 ET
KBC Group NV (KBCSY)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
May 16, 2024, 3:30 AM ET
Company Participants
Kurt De Baenst - General Manager, Investor Relations
Johan Thijs - Group Chief Executive Officer
Luc Popelier - Group Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Giulia Miotto - Morgan Stanley
Tarik El Mejjad - Bank of America
Raul Sinha - JPMorgan
Sharath Kumar - Deutsche Bank
Benoit Petrarque - Kepler
Sam Moran-Smyth - Barclays
Chris Hallam - Goldman Sachs International
Kiri Vijayarajah - HSBC
Guillaume Tiberghien - BNP Paribas Exane
Mike Harrison - Redburn Atlantic
Anke Reingen - RBC
Farquhar Murray - Autonomous
Presentation
Operator
Hello. And welcome to the KBC Group Earnings Release First Quarter 2024. My name is Natalie, and I will be your coordinator for today’s event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. [Operator Instructions]
I will now hand you over to your host, Kurt De Baenst, General Manager, Investor Relations to begin today’s conference. Thank you.
Kurt De Baenst
Thank you, Operator. A very good morning to all of you from the headquarters of KBC in rainy Brussels and welcome to the KBC conference call. Today is Thursday, May 16, 2024, and we are hosting the conference call of the first quarter results of KBC.
As usual, we have Johan Thijs, Group CEO with us; as well as Luc Popelier, Group CFO, and they will both elaborate on the results and add some additional insights.
As such, it’s my pleasure to give the floor to our CEO, Johan Thijs, who will quickly run you through the presentation.
Johan Thijs
Thank you very much, Kurt, and also from my side, a warm welcome to the announcement of the first quarter results 2024, and as usual, we’ll start with the key takeaways. Let me begin immediately with the announcement of an excellent €506 million net result for the first quarter 2024.
One of the reasons why I say it’s an excellent result is that it is heavily distorted by bank taxes, which are, as you all know, mainly booked full year. Bank taxes are mainly booked in the first quarter. That is a whopping €518 million. And if you would correct that, then indeed, this is an excellent quarter, which is even better than what we have saw -- what we have seen in the previous quarters and it’s perfectly in line with what we saw with last year’s quarter.
Let me translate a little bit differently. It’s a return on equity of 14%-ish. If you equally spread the bank taxes, but it’s also quite clear that if you look at the results, it’s once again a proof that KBC Group is much more than a net interest income bank.
Diversification of our results is, again, stellar in this quarter. As a matter of fact, the bank insurance franchise has been firing on all its cylinders. We have seen a very good evolution of our net interest income. We have seen growth on our customer loans and on our customer deposits. We have seen a strong growth on our fee and commission income. We have seen a strong growth on the insurance side, both non-life and life. We have seen very limited net impairments on our loans. And we have seen a decline, which is positive news, on our cost side....
KBC Group NV (KBCSY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript