Bank of New York Mellon Profit Jumps 74 Percent

The Bank of New York Mellon on Tuesday said its first quarter profit jumped 74 percent, as the market recovery drove growth in its asset and wealth management business.

CEO Robert Kelly said the economic outlook is clearly improving, as demonstrated by the performance of the equity and credit markets.

The trust bank's net income applicable to common shareholders rose to $559 million, or 46 cents per share, compared with year-ago profit of $322 million, or 28 cents per share.

Excluding reserves for litigation, merger and integration expenses, restructuring charges and other items, adjusted profit was 59 cents per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, expected profit of 53 cents per share.

Shares of Bank of New York Mellon were flat in premarket trading. They closed at $32.14 on Monday.

Total fee revenue rose 5 percent to $2.56 billion, from $2.43 billion a year ago.

Asset and wealth management fees rose 13 percent to $696 million. Assets under management rose 25 percent to $1.1 trillion at March 31.

The provision for credit losses — money set aside to cover souring loans — decreased 41 percent to $35 million from $59 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. Bank of New York Mellon said the decrease in the provision reflects improvements in its highest-risk asset classes.

Nonperforming assets, or loans considered past due, totaled $459 million, up 9 percent from $421 million last year. Residential mortgages accounted for nearly 45 percent of the nonperforming loans, or $204 million.

Continued low interest rates hurt net interest income, or profit earned from deposits. It edged down a percent to $765 million, from $775 million a year ago.

Foreign exchange and other trading activities fell 14 percent to $263 million, from $307 million last year.

Bank of New York Mellon posted net investment securities pre-tax gains of $7 million, reversing a pre-tax net loss of $295 million in the first quarter of 2009.