Bank of New York Co.’s profit more than tripled in the latest quarter, as the improving stock market and an acquisition helped results.
The bank Wednesday posted fourth-quarter profit of $307 million, or 40 cents a share, up sharply from the previous year’s $100 million, or 14 cents a share.
Included in the latest quarter was an after-tax benefit of $31 million resulting from its merger with Credit Suisse First Boston’s Pershing stock-processing unit.
Excluding items, earnings came in at 44 cents a share and matched the projected earnings forecast, on average, in a Thomson First Call survey of analysts.
The previous year’s results included a $125 million charge on aircraft leases to bankrupt United Airlines.
Net-interest income – a measure of lending profit – rose 1.2 percent to $418 million from $413 million.
The company’s security-servicing business, its largest in terms of revenue, posted record fees of $684 million in the quarter, up 4 percent, from the third quarter and 41 percent from a year earlier. Growth was credited to the Pershing deal, global custody, funds and depositary receipts.
At the next-largest division, private-client services and asset management, fees rose to $103 million, up 6.1 percent from the third quarter and 17 percent from a year earlier. Improvements in the U.S. stock market and strength in Ivy Asset Management, a fund-of-funds hedge-fund manager, were credited for the gains.
For all of 2003, the company reported net income of $1.2 billion, or $1.52 a share, compared with $902 million, or $1.24 a share, in 2002.
Earnings for 2003 were $1.67 a share, excluding nonoperating charges of 8 cents a share for Pershing-related merger and integration costs and 7 cents a share for settlement costs with GMAC related to the company’s sale of its factoring business in 1999. First Call’s earnings projection was $1.68 per share.
Bank of New York shares were at $33.47 in early trading Wednesday, down 83 cents, or 2.4 percent, on the New York Stock Exchange.
