Bank of America (BAC) reported first-quarter net income on Wednesday of $3.4 billion, or $0.27 per share, compared with a loss of $276 million, or $0.05 per share, in the year-ago period – missing analysts’ EPS estimates by $0.02.
Revenue, net of interest expense, was $21.4 billion vs. about $22.7 billion a year ago, mainly due to onetime items. Excluding these items, revenue was $21.9 billion in the first quarter.
“Continuing the trend from last quarter, we saw core loan and deposit growth, higher mortgage originations and increased wealth management client balances,” said CEO Brian Moynihan, in a statement. “We retained a top position in investment banking as our team generated the highest advisory fees since the Merrill Lynch merger.”
Wealth Management
Global Wealth and Investment Management had Q1 net income of $651 million, down 11% from a year ago. Revenue dropped slightly to $4.5 billion from $4.6 billion in Q1’14.
Non-interest expenses grew 3% to $3.5 billion, as the unit spent more money on “revenue-related incentive compensation and investment in client-facing professionals,” BofA says. This pushed the unit’s return on average allocated capital to 22% in the first quarter of 2015 vs. 25% in the year-ago quarter.