S&P Global Market Intelligence offers our top picks of banking news stories and more published throughout the week.
Earnings scorecard
* Standard Chartered Plc reported full-year 2017 profit attributable to parent company shareholders of $1.22 billion, compared to a year-ago loss of $247 million. The Britain-headquartered bank plans to pay an ordinary equity share dividend for 2017 of 11 U.S. cents per share, having paid none for 2016.
* PAO Sberbank of Russia will focus on growing its market share in residential mortgages and credit cards, its top executives said after the lender reported a 38.2% increase in group net profit to 748.7 billion rubles in 2017 from 541.9 billion rubles a year earlier. Fellow Russian lender JSC VTB Bank posted a 130% year over year increase in full-year 2017 net attributable profit to 120.3 billion Russian rubles and said that it is currently reviewing several small M&A opportunities in its home market.
* Erste Group Bank AG is also targeting growth, but will do so by expanding its digital product offerings rather than through M&A, according to CEO Andreas Treichl and CFO Gernot Mittendorfer. The group reported full-year 2017 consolidated net attributable result of €1.32 billion, up 4.1% from the year-ago €1.26 billion.
* In Ireland, Allied Irish Banks Plc proposed to increase its ordinary dividend for 2017 by 30% to €326 million, or 12 cents per ordinary share, despite a year-over-year fall in after-tax profit from continuing operations attributable to owners of the parent to €1.11 billion from €1.36 billion. Bank of Ireland Group Plc, meanwhile, proposed a dividend of 11.5 cents per share — its first in 10 years — despite seeing a decline in consolidated attributable profit to €664 million in 2017 from the restated €799 million in 2016.
* Germany's Aareal Bank AG and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Belgium's Dexia SA and Belfius Banque SA, Poland's OTP Bank Nyrt., Spain's Kutxabank SA, and Bank of Cyprus Holdings Plc are among firms that also reported their full-year 2017 results this week.
M&A buzz
* Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and France's Société Générale SA reportedly made final offers for Commerzbank AG's equity markets and commodities unit, with the final buyer to be determined in March.
* The German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg confirmed that they have agreed to sell a 94.9% stake in HSH Nordbank AG to U.S. private equity firms Cerberus Capital Management LP, J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC and GoldenTree Asset Management for around €1 billion.
* Germany-based DZ Bank AG is considering "all strategic options" for transport-focused unit DVB Bank SE after the latter's pretax losses more than doubled to €774 million in 2017 from €278 million in 2016. Among firms said to be interested in potentially acquiring DVB Bank are Bank of China Ltd. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.
* The board of U.K.-based Holmesdale Building Society agreed to merge with Skipton Building Society. The proposed merger is expected to become effective Oct. 1.
IPOs on the horizon
* Deutsche Bank AG said it intends to proceed with an IPO of asset management unit DWS on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange "in the earliest available window." The German lender did not indicate the size of the IPO, but sources previously told Reuters that it plans to list 25% of DWS' existing shares in the week of March 19 for an expected €1.5 billion to €2 billion.
* Netherlands-based NIBC Holding NV announced its intention to proceed with an IPO of approximately 35% of its outstanding and issued shares on Euronext Amsterdam. The planned offering is expected to take place in the coming weeks.
* U.K.-based subprime lender Amigo Loans Ltd. is said to have hired JPMorgan and RBC Capital Markets to examine a potential London listing that could value the company at over $700 million.
Regulatory boulevard
* The ECB declared ABLV Bank AS and unit ABLV Bank Luxembourg as "failing or likely to fail" and ordered the lender to be wound up. The decision came after Latvia's central bank agreed to provide €297.2 million in emergency liquidity assistance to the embattled lender to help it stabilize its operations.
* Estonian financial regulator Finantsinspektsioon will launch an investigation into Danske Bank A/S following reports that the Danish lender had been aware of alleged money laundering at its Estonian unit as early as 2013.
* Zurich prosecutors have opened a probe into former Raiffeisen Gruppe Switzerland CEO Pierin Vincenz over potential breach of trust linked to payments firm Aduno Holding AG and private equity firm Investnet AG. Raiffeisen said it has also joined the investigation as a private complainant and will lodge a criminal complaint against Vincenz, who has been dogged by suspicions of conflict of interest during his tenure at the group.
* The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority placed Beaufort Securities Ltd. and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services Ltd. into insolvency following a review of their financial positions.
In other news
* Provident Financial Plc unveiled plans to carry out a rights issue to raise gross proceeds of approximately £331 million after agreeing to pay more than £170 million to settle a misselling investigation at its Vanquis Bank Ltd. unit. In connection with the settlement, Provident Financial had booked £172.1 million in provisions in its full-year 2017 results.
* ECB Supervisory Board Chair Danièle Nouy said the regulator will decide "on a case-to-case basis" whether to require banks that will fall short in the adverse scenario of the 2018 stress tests to set aside more capital.
* Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $240 million to resolve a private U.S. antitrust lawsuit by so-called over-the-counter investors accusing it of colluding with other lenders to rig the London Interbank Offered Rate.
Featured during the week on S&P Global Market Intelligence
Europe pushes for banking union, but big cross-border mergers remain elusive: European regulators and even some bank bosses agree that consolidation in Europe's banking sector, including across borders, is a necessity. But a number of factors, both internal and external, look set to keep holding back the tide.
Safe bonds to fortify EU banks, but success hangs on German politics: Germany's new government may back bonds which could help defuse the eurozone's dreaded "doom loop."
Russia's financial stability sound despite bank bailouts, but problems may loom: The recent recapitalization of three privately held lenders by the central bank has not undermined Russia's financial stability, but risks remain for the medium to long term, according to S&P Global Ratings.