National Bank Shares Rise After Earnings Beat, Boost to Dividend

By Robb M. Stewart

National Bank of Canada's shares jumped Friday after the big Canadian lender's earnings for the latest quarter topped expectations and it boosted shareholder returns with a raised dividend and a share buyback program.

In morning trading, the shares were 4.1% higher, at 93.58 Canadian dollars (US$69.01), outperforming of the country's other big banks, which mostly were lower. The stock has now risen 2.6% so far this year.

The Montreal banking and financial-services company logged fourth-quarter earnings of C$768 million Canadian dollars, or C$2.14 a share, up from C$738 million, or C$2.08, a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, per-share earnings came in at C$2.44, beating the C$2.26 mean estimate of analysts polled by FactSet.

Overall revenue increased to C$2.59 billion, ahead of the market forecast for C$2.64 billion, and driven in large part by a jump in revenue at National Bank's financial markets segment.

Mike Rizvanovic, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said expense inflation for National Bank remains less of an issue than for most of its peers, while provisions in the quarter were lower than both he and the market had expected. The bank's provision for credit losses increased to C$115 million from C$87 million last year.

National Bank raised its quarterly dividend 3.9%, to C$1.06 a share and its board approved plans to repurchase up to 7 million of the bank's shares

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 01, 2023 11:26 ET (16:26 GMT)

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