By Michael Calia And Angela Chen
State Street Corp. said strength in its trading-services and
forex trading segments spurred strong earnings growth in the fourth
quarter, despite unfavorable currency effects.
Results beat expectations.
"Despite the low interest-rate environment in 2014, our revenue
experienced solid growth compared with 2013 from both asset
servicing and asset management," said Chief Executive Joseph L.
Hooley. State Street added some $400 billion of new asset-servicing
mandates last quarter and net new assets to be managed were $7
billion.
Overall, State Street reported earnings of $525 million, down
from $545 million, a year ago. On a per-share basis, however,
earnings were $1.24 a share compared with $1.22 a year earlier.
On an operating basis, profit rose to $1.37 a share versus $1.15
a share.
Revenue improved 6.9% to $2.63 billion, while operating revenue
grew 13% to $582 million.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters recently estimated a
per-share profit of $1.26 and revenue of $2.67 billion.
The firm said it had $2.74 trillion in assets under management
as of Dec. 31, about 0.2% less than it had during the same period a
year ago. Assets under custody and administration rose to $28.19
trillion from $27.43 trillion.
Servicing fees grew 5.6% to $1.3 billion due to new business and
stronger U.S. equity markets, though partially offset by the
stronger dollar. Management fees grew 3.1% to $299 million, largely
due to the same reasons.
In its trading-services business, revenue jumped 24%. Revenue
jumped 34% in forex trading.
Shares of State Street, inactive premarket, are up about 6% in
the past 12 months through Thursday's close.
Write to Michael Calia at michael.calia@wsj.com and Angela Chen
at angela.chen@dowjones.com
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