(Bloomberg) -- Societe Generale SA equities traders outshone their bond-trading counterparts for a fourth straight quarter, with revenue from the unit helping the French bank beat estimates for profit in the three months through March.  

Income from the trading of equities products rose 3% to €870 million ($933 million) in the period, beating the €843 million that analysts polled by Bloomberg anticipated. Revenue from trading bonds and currencies fell 17% from a year earlier, in part reflecting high activity in early 2023. 

The equities performance is still behind Wall Street peers, which posted an average 6% increase in revenue and also behind that at BNP Paribas SA, which reported a gain of 11% in the period. Overall, lower costs in the quarter helped cement the bottom-line result, with net income coming in ahead of estimates at €680 million.

Almost one year into the top job, SocGen Chief Executive Officer Slawomir Krupa is advancing his plan to streamline the bank and reduce costs to shore up capital. Earlier this year, the bank announced about 900 job cuts at its headquarters in Paris, as well as the disposals of units in Morocco and of its equipment finance business. The lender is still seeking to offload custodian unit SGSS as well as Germany’s Hanseatic Bank and UK’s Kleinwort Hambros.

SocGen shares rose as much as 6.1%. The stock has trailed peers over the past year as Krupa scaled back financial targets set by his predecessor.

The lender on Friday confirmed its full-year guidance, reiterating it wants to grow revenue by at least 5% and achieve profitability measured in return on tangible equity of more than 6%. Both metrics fell short of those goals in the first quarter.

Local rival Credit Agricole SA on Friday said it expects to reach its medium-term profit target a year early, after posting net income that beat analyst estimates. Its fixed-income, commodities and currencies traders, who broadly outperformed their peers throughout 2023, saw underlying revenue decline 3%.

SocGen’s financing and advisory unit reported 3.5% higher revenue for the first quarter, above estimates. The increase was driven by asset-backed finance, and a rebound in debt issuance services. Mergers and acquisitions activity remained low, the bank said, as is the case more broadly in the industry. 

At the bank’s French retail banking unit, wrong-way hedges continued to weigh on net interest income in the first quarter, with a hit of about €300 million. Revenue at the unit, which also includes private banking and insurance activities, declined 3.5% in the quarter.

Read More: SocGen Suffers $1.7 Billion Hit as Ill-Timed Hedges Backfire

The bank’s cost-to-income ratio, which the lender aims to bring below 71% for the year, was at 74.9% in the first quarter. Expenses came in 1.5% lower than a year earlier, in part because of the end of the contribution to the region’s Single Resolution Fund.

Provisions for souring loans increased to €400 million in the three months through March. The bank’s CET1 ratio, a key measure of its financial strength, stood at 13.2% as of end-March.

(Updates with share reaction in fifth paragraph, Credit Agricole results in seventh.)

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