UniCredit Group announced its financial results for the last quarter and the full year 2024

The results announced today mark three years of success under the UniCredit Unlocked strategy, three years in which UniCredit has consistently exceeded its set targets. The next phase will see the group accelerate its winning strategy and uniquely position itself as the bank for Europe’s future. The group’s net profit in 2024 reached EUR 9.7 billion, up 2% year-on-year. Net revenues increased to EUR 24.2 billion, up 4% year-on-year, driven by strong customer growth and a diverse product offering.

Andrea Orcel, CEO of UniCredit statement: 

“Three years ago we announced UniCredit Unlocked with financial goals that many said were too ambitious. We have now overdelivered on all those goals, outperforming on all metrics including profitability and distribution targets, and are entering the next phase of our strategy. In this phase, we will accelerate our growth, aspiring to further widen the gap with our competitors, close our valuation gap, and cementing UniCredit as the bank of Europe’s future and benchmark for banking.

We ended 2024 with a strong fourth quarter, crowning 16 quarters of quality profitable growth and our best full year stated net profit ever at €9.7 billion, net profit ex DTA is up 8% versus the prior full year. Underlying net profit was €10.3 billion excluding actions to secure future profitability.

Full year RoTE was a robust 17.7%, or 20.9% on a 13% CET1 ratio, underpinned by increased net revenue, a best-in-class cost/income ratio and superior capital efficiency with an organic capital generation of €12.6 billion. We intend to increase our distributions to €9.0 billion to shareholders for 2024, pending approvals. As further proof of our generous distribution policy we are increasing the cash dividend to 50% of net profit from 2025.

Our stand-alone growth and distribution investment case is compelling supported by an attractive geographic footprint, a quality client and business mix as our lines of defence will protect us and our clear alpha initiatives deliver ever greater results. We will continue to demonstrate superior financial performance and shareholder value creation. Any inorganic growth must improve our standalone case and meet our strict financial and strategic requirements.

The macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop remains complicated and unpredictable. We are however well positioned to absorb a normalization of interest rates and cost of risk and cost inflation. Our diversification together with management actions, and integration costs and overlays already taken provides us with an important advantage. This will allow us to maintain strong profitability and distribution.

Finally, a profound thank you to the employees for their hard work and dedication to all our stakeholders. I am proud of your successes as we build the bank for Europe’s future together.”

photo credits: UniCredit