Shares of Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON: LLOY) are trading up on Thursday after the financial institution reported better-than-expected underlying profit for its fiscal fourth quarter.
Notable figures in Lloyds’ financial update
The London-headquartered firm said it had £1.97 billion ($2.37 billion) of underlying profit in its recent quarter versus £1.85 billion expected.
Lloyds ended 2022 with CET1 ratio of 14.1%, missing estimates by 10 basis points. In the press release, CEO Charlie Nunn said:
The Group has delivered a robust financial performance with strong income growth, continued franchise strength and strong capital generation, enabling increased capital returns for shareholders.
Also on Thursday, the financial services behemoth proposed 1.60 pence a share of final dividend and revealed plans of announcing a £2.0 billion stock buyback programme as well.
Lloyds Banking Group’s outlook for the future
Lloyds now forecasts its banking net interest margin to surpass 3.05% in 2023 – down from 3.22% in the fourth quarter.
Return on tangible equity, it added, is expected around 13% for the current year as well as the next year. That also suggests a 50 basis points decline versus 2022.
The lender guided for an increase in operating costs as well to about £9.1 billion this year and a further tick up to £9.2 billion in 2024. Its cost to income ratio target of under 50% by 2026 remained unchanged.
For the year, Lloyds stock is up roughly 10% at writing. Wall Street has a consensus “overweight” rating on the financial services company.
The post Lloyds beats estimates for underlying profit in Q4 appeared first on Invezz.
