Despite a healthy jump in its wealth-management operations, Wells Fargo (WFC) said Tuesday that its net income fell slightly to $5.8 billion, or $1.04 per share, in the first quarter vs. $5.9 billion, or $1.05 per share, a year ago. This beat analysts’ estimates of $0.98 a share.
Total revenue for the San Francisco-based bank was $21.3 billion, a 3% improvement from a year ago.
Its largest business segment, community banking, saw its revenue grow slightly from last year to nearly $12.8 billion, which was a small drop from the fourth quarter. The segment’s net income, though, was about $3.7 billion compared with $3.8 billion a year earlier (and $3.4 billion in the prior quarter).
The wholesale banking unit had total revenue of about $5.9 billion and net income of $1.8 billion vs. year-ago results of $5.6 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively.
“Our solid first quarter results again reflected the benefit of our diversified business model and the continued focus of our 266,000 team members on serving the needs of consumer and business customers,” said Chairman and CEO John Stumpf, in a statement. “We continued to strengthen our customer relationships in the quarter, as reflected in strong growth in deposits and primary checking customers.”
Wealth Results