BNY Mellon's fourth-quarter profit shows modest gain

Reuters
A woman walks past a logo at the office of the Bank of New York Mellon in Brussels, February 25, 2010. REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet

(Reuters) - BNY Mellon Corp said on Friday its fourth-quarter profit rose slightly and met Wall Street expectations as a buoyant stock market lifted investment management and performance fees. Excluding a one-time item, the world's largest custody bank earned $628 million, or 54 cents a share, compared with $622 million, or 53 cents a share, a year earlier. In the latest quarter, the bank recorded an after-tax loss of $115 million on an equity investment. The latest per-share result matched analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net income was $513 million, or 44 cents a share. The bank posted revenue gains across all of its major activities, such as safeguarding assets and calculating mutual fund prices. Investment management and performance fees were $904 million in the quarter, a 6 percent increase over the year-ago period. Foreign exchange revenue surged 19 percent to $126 million on higher volume and volatility in global currency markets. Long-term net inflows into the bank's mutual funds totaled $2 billion in the fourth quarter, but it was the weakest showing in the past five quarters. BNY Mellon ended 2013 with $27.6 trillion in assets under custody and administration, a 5 percent gain over 2012. (Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Jeffrey Benkoe)