Intesa Sanpaolo Doubles Dividend Payout in 2015

By Liam Moloney and Giovanni Legorano

ROME--Intesa Sanpaolo said Friday its fourth-quarter net profit declined 73% to 13 million euros ($14.6 million) and was substantially lower than in the previous three quarters of last year, due to a one-off contribution to a bailout fund set up to rescue four smaller Italian lenders.

In a statement, Intesa Sanpaolo said its fourth-quarter net profit would have been EUR263 million if the charges for the resolution fund were excluded.

The bank said it plans to pay a EUR0.14 ordinary dividend and EUR0.151 savings share for 2015, compared with EUR0.07 for each ordinary share and EUR0.081 a savings share for the previous year. The 2015 total dividend payout will be worth EUR2.4 billion, twice as much as a year earlier.

Last November, the bank's Chief Executive Officer Carlo Messina had said the bank could have paid a higher dividend for 2015 than the EUR2 billion the bank planned to pay given the positive results it had achieved.

Analysts polled by Factset expected the bank to post a net profit of EUR70 million for the last three months of 2015.

Write to Liam Moloney at [e-mail] and Giovanni Legorano at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 05, 2016 08:52 ET (13:52 GMT)

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