The Global Wealth and Investment Management unit of Bank of America has posted a net income of $614m for the fourth quarter of 2015, down 13% compared to $705m a year ago.
For the quarter ended 31 December 2015, the division’s revenue was $4.4bn, down $160m or 4.3% from $4.6bn a year earlier.
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During this period, the wealth arm’s total client balances remained relatively unchanged at nearly $2.5trillion.
The division’s net interest income (NII) was relatively flat, as the benefits from loan and deposit growth were mostly offset by the impact of the firm’s allocation of asset liability management (ALM) activities.
Noninterest expense increased $36m from the year ago quarter to $3.4bn due to higher amortization of previously issued stock awards and investments in client-facing professionals, partially offset by lower revenue related incentives.
The unit also reported a fall in noninterest income due to lower transactional activity and lower market valuations.
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By GlobalDataFourth-quarter 2015 long-term assets under management (AUM) flows of $7bn were the 26th consecutive quarter of positive flows.
The group said that the number of wealth advisors at the unit grew by 5% to 18,167.
Overall, Bank of America reported a net income of $3.3bn or $0.28 a share for the fourth quarter of 2015, up 9% compared to a year ago period.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said: "We saw solid customer activity in loan growth, deposits, and wealth management asset flows, and we returned more capital to our shareholders."
Bank of America chief financial officer Paul Donofrio said: "We increased net interest income, managed expenses tightly, and returned $1.3 billion in capital to our shareholders this quarter through common stock repurchases and dividends."
