State Street Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings more than quadrupled from a prior-year period weighed down by charges, though the trust bank's revenue from fees weakened.
State Street is one of the country's largest trust banks, acting as a custodian for investment firms' securities and handling other back-office duties. The Boston bank has benefited from strong deposit growth, but like other lenders has had less opportunity to earn money with them amid low interest rates and turbulent capital markets.
State Street reported a profit of $381 million, or 76 cents a share, up from $83 million, or 16 cents a share, a year earlier. The latest period included 23 cents in charges tied to expense control measures and its business operations and information technology transformation program, while the year-earlier period included 67 cents in losses related to repositioning its investment portfolio and 21 cents in restructuring-related charges. Operating earnings climbed to 93 cents a share from 87 cents.
Revenue increased 13% to $2.32 billion and was essentially flat at $2.29 billion on an operating basis.
In the latest period, fee revenue declined 4%.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently projected earnings of 94 cents on operating revenue of $2.4 billion.
Foreign-exchange trading revenue dropped 12%.
The company also has a major investment management arm, State Street Global Advisors, whose clients include nonprofit organizations, corporations and pension funds. In the latest quarter, investment management fees at Global Advisors fell 9%. Total assets under management were $1.87 trillion as of Dec. 31, down from $2.01 trillion a year earlier.
State Street, like rival Bank of New York Mellon Corp., has been the target of lawsuits and regulatory probes over how they process currency transactions for clients, including allegations they routinely overcharged for the service over a decade.
