Novobanco posts €435 million profit and presses ahead with Unibanco purchase

Novobanco, which has only recently been acquired by the French banking group BPCE for €6.4Bn, has posted first half profits of €435 million.

The Portuguese bank, which had been controlled by US equity fund Lone Star, has also announced an agreement to acquire Unibanco, a consumer credit brand held by Unicre for an unspecified amount with ambitions to increase its lending portfolio by 15%

Novobanco is only buying the productive part of Unibanco which was valued at €262 million. At the end of June, Novobanco’s consumer credit portfolio reached €2.1Bn. If the acquisition was finalised now, that would increase its portfolio to €2.4Bn.

The purchase will help the bank gain scale and would increase its client base, enabling the bank to beef up its commercial presence in the Portuguese consumer credit market while boosting cross-selling opportunities.

The operation means that other banks agree with the decision since Unicre has various financial institutions among its shareholders including Novobanco (17.5%) of the capital, BCP 31%, Santander (22%), BPI (21%) and Banco Montepio (4%).

As for the first half results, they were up 17.4% on 1H, 2024 although the financial margin fell 6.1% to €558.8 million compared to the €594.9 million achieved in June 2024.

The fall was offset by bank charges that netted the bank +11.1% from €161.2 million to €179 million.

Novobanco’s commercial banking product fell by 2.4%, less than the margin, but the bank’s half year results were buoyed by credit recovery, real estate results, and tax processes, namely the Additional Solidarity Contribution, which ended up in the column ‘other exploration results’, growing €1.5 million to €57.5 million.

Overall, the total bank product grew 6% to €798 million. The bank paid more taxes this half than last (€88.7 million).

The bank’s credit portfolio increased €1.4Bn to reach €27.9Bn (up 5%), while its ratio of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) fell from 4.1% to 3.2%. The volume of deposits also increased (4.1%) to €31Bn.