UniCredit: profit-taking after annual results

(CercleFinance.com) - On Tuesday, UniCredit suffered one of the steepest falls on the European stock market following the publication of 'record' annual results, its rather cautious outlook for 2025 encouraging profit-taking after the sustained rise in its share price over recent months.


The Italian banking group reported this morning that it had posted 16 consecutive quarters of profitable growth, enabling it to post a net profit up 8.1% to 9.3 billion euros in 2024.

Revenues rose by 4% to €24.2 billion last year, while costs fell by 1% to €9.4 billion, despite inflationary pressures.

The Milan-based bank says it has exceeded the targets set out in its 'UniCredit Unlocked' strategic plan, and is now ready to enter an acceleration phase in the period 2025-2027.

For 2025, the financial services group nonetheless expects net income to be "broadly in line" with last year's figure, with revenues expected to top €23 billion, which would mark a year-on-year decline in business.

UniCredit, which justifies its caution by the current economic climate, nonetheless says it anticipates higher redistributions to shareholders than those paid out for the 2024 financial year, with a dividend expected to reach 50% of its annual net profit.

Despite this, the share price fell by 3.3% on Tuesday morning in the wake of this publication, a victim of profit-taking after its sustained performance over the past few months.

The share price has surged by more than 60% over the past 12 months, outperforming the STOXX Europe 600 Banks sector index, which also performed well over the same period (+43%).

Copyright (c) 2025 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.