Brazil's BTG profit jumps driven by fees and loans

SAO PAULO: Brazilian bank Banco BTG Pactual SA on Tuesday posted a recurring net income of 1.23 billion reais ($229.24 million), up 24.6% year-over-year, as its revenues grew in most of its business units.

BTG's return on equity, a closely watched measure of profitability, was at 19.1%, up 3.4 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Total revenues at BTG rose 14% from a year earlier, to 2.8 billion reais, boosted by investment banking, corporate lending and wealth management.

Fees from share offerings, mergers and acquisitions and debt issuance deals on which BTG advised jumped 68% year-over-year, as Brazil saw a boom in initial public offerings. IPOs totaled $8.7 billion in Brazil last year, up 73.5% from 2019, with 29 new listings.

"Not only the top line was strong but operating metrics also posted a solid performance, with material expansion in the bank's loan portfolio and inflows as well," analysts at UBS BB said in a note to clients.

BTG's loan book rose by 7.9% in the quarter, to 73.7 billion reais.

Still, operating expenses rose 5%, to 1 billion reais, driven by BTG's newly launched retail unit. The bank's worked forced ended December in 3,515 employees, up 37% year-over-year.

Units in the bank were down 0.6% in the morning trading, but they are up more than 20% this year on optimism about the potential of the digital consumer banking business.