Italian UniCredit SpA upgraded its financial expectations for this year, after the lender posted an unexpectedly high net profit rise of 8.3% to €2.8 billion year-on-year for the first three months of 2025.
Net revenues were up 2.8% to €6.bn, driven by fees up 8.2% to €2.3bn in the same period, driven mainly by strong growth in investment and financing fees. This offset the declining net interest income, which was down 4.8% quarter on quarter to €3.5bn.
“UniCredit posted an outstanding set of first quarter results, beating across all KPIs and widening our positive gap vs. peers,” Andrea Orcel, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit, said in a statement. “We delivered the best quarterly results in UniCredit’s history and the 17th quarter of consecutive profitable growth.”
On the better-than-expected quarterly results, the bank announced an upgrade on its expectations for the financial year of 2025, “with possible upside”. They expect the net profit to come in above €9.3bn for the full year, and net revenues to end up at around €23bn.
The Italian bank has plans to improve its portfolio across Europe, and has noted it is pursuing interesting possibilities, as long as it benefits of all stakeholders.
According to Bloomberg, UniCredit is about to start talks with Italian government officials to clarify the conditions imposed on its takeover offer for Banco BPM SpA, after the bank recently received the permission of the ECB to acquire direct control of its Italian competitor.
In the past three months, UniCredit completed the acquisition of Aion Bank and Vodeno, both offering digital financial services. UniCredit also gained the ECB’s approval to increase its stake in Germany’s Commerzbank to 29.9%, which is seen by many as an attempt for a potential takeover.
UniCredit also received the green light from the ECB to carry out the second tranche of the 2024 share buy-back programme for a maximum of €3.6bn, according to a press statement released on Friday.