Banco Bradesco S.A. (BBD) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending March 31, 2023

May 5, 2023 9:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Carlos Firetti

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Conference Call to discuss our First Quarter 2023 Results. Thank you for your interest and participation. Our CEO, Octavio, will present Bradesco's results, and then we will have a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

The presentation and other materials are available for download in our Investor Relations website. The presentation will be made in Portuguese with simultaneous interpretation to English. You can choose the audio of your choice on the platform.

Now I turn the floor to Octavio who will begin the presentation of our earnings. We'll meet again in the Q&A session. Thank you very much. See you soon.

Octavio de Lazari

Thank you, Firetti. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our videoconference to discuss our earnings of the first quarter 2023.

In the first slide, we present some highlights. We posted a net profit of BRL 4.3 billion, a 10.6% ROE in the first quarter, in line with the expectations we indicated in the last earnings release and reflected in the guidance.

Credit provisions are still high, however, within our indications. We saw positive progress in important lines such as insurance operations and market NII. This first quarter was marked by volatility in the markets, including discussions on interest and tax issues. However, the quarter ended better with a positive expectation brought on by the new tax and fiscal framework.

As we mentioned previously, we see our second quarter performance still under pressure mainly due to credit provisions. We reinforce the message that we see our earnings evolving over 2023 with superior performance in the second half. We believe that our structural return has not changed significantly. Bradesco's management is focused on delivering returns compatible with what we have previously provided. But we do acknowledge that this is a recovery that will be gradual.

Before we talk about our numbers, let's talk about strategy. There are a number of initiatives taking place simultaneously, such as in retail bank, high income, digital assets, IT and others. We've spoken at length about expanding our operations in high income; the purchase of Bradesco Bank, the Invest US, which is a partnership with BlackRock for the management of Investment funds abroad; the official opening of the new headquarters in Coral Gables that took place last week; the capital increase in Bradesco Bank now exceeding BRL 2 billion because we understand that this is fundamental, and we are allocating our efforts in this endeavor with a dedicated team.