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Exceptional capital gains linked to the acquisition of AXA Bank Belgium helped the banking group Crelan to a record profit of more than 660 million euros last year. ‘Our biggest challenge will now be integrating two teams with different corporate cultures’, say chairman Luc Versele and CEO Philippe Voisin.
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For CEO Philippe Voisin and chairman Luc Versele, the real work has only just begun. Crelan expects the integration of AXA Bank Belgium to take more than two years, until the spring of 2024.
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The essence
- Crelan posted a net profit of more than 660 million euros in 2021. The bank owes this record figure to exceptional windfalls linked to the acquisition of AXA Bank Belgium.
- Excluding these exceptional elements, net profit rose by a third to over 66 million euros.
- AXA Bank Belgium recorded a 41 percent increase in net profit of 93 million euros in the same period.
- The integration of both banks will not be completed until spring 2024.
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‘We have now taken the first steps in that process, including by drawing up a new framework structure and starting to adapt our IT,’ says Voisin. ‘But of course it is about much more. You have to harmonize the product range of both banks, streamline internal supervision. Our biggest challenge will now be integrating two teams with different corporate cultures.’
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‘Especially the employees of AXA Bank Belgium were concerned about what would happen to them after the takeover’, adds Versele. “But you notice now that they are relieved and that they are willing to continue working together.”
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Staff
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From an accounting point of view, the AXA deal has already significantly boosted Crelan’s figures. The bank, still good for a net profit of more than 49 million euros in 2020, was able to turn out a record profit of 660.35 million euros in 2021 thanks to one-off windfalls linked to the acquisition of AXA Bank Belgium.
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The sale of its insurance branch to the French parent group AXA already generated a capital gain of just under 47 million euros for Crelan. At the same time, the bank booked a one-off windfall of 598.81 million euros because it had acquired AXA Bank Belgium for less than its book value.
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Excluding those one-off elements, Crelan posted a net profit of 66.3 million euros last year. The fact that this figure is a third higher than a year ago is partly due to the fact that Crelan was able to reverse provisions for possible credit losses earlier and that the bank was able to derive more income from the sale of investment products. AXA Bank Belgium also benefited from this and saw its net profit increase by 41 percent last year to 93 million euros.
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“These results are better than we expected,” Voisin admits. ‘The difficulty in 2021 was to keep things running as well as possible commercially, while at the same time we had to invest a lot of time in the acquisition.’
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Crelan was able to benefit from an economic recovery in 2021 while the corona crisis ebbed, but this year is more difficult. The rising inflation is of particular concern to Voisin. ‘In Belgium, employees can partly compensate for this through the indexation of wages. But we do take into account that the number of bankruptcies could increase in the coming months.’
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