(By Mani) Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCHW) reported higher fourth-quarter profit, which came in-line with Street view, helped by higher asset management fees.
San Francisco, California-based Charles Schwab earned $189 million, or 15 cents a share, up from $163 million, or 13 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. Net revenues advanced 9 percent to $1.21 billion. Wall Street expected earnings of 15 cents a share on revenue of $1.21 billion, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
The company mitigated the lower interest rate environment by growing its client base, and made further progress in building non rate-sensitive sources of revenue, including an 11 percent increase in fees from rising balances in its proprietary advice solutions.
Asset management fees rose 18 percent to $539 million, while trading revenues fell 13 percent to $202 million. Net interest revenue improved 10 percent to $433 million.
Net new accounts for the quarter totaled approximately 4,000, down 69 percent year-over-year. Total accounts reached 6.1 million as of December 31, 2012, up 7 percent from last year.
Total client assets increased 16 percent to $1.95 trillion. It added 900,000 new brokerage accounts during 2012, and active brokerage accounts rose 3 percent to 8.8 million at year-end.
Delinquency, nonaccrual, and loss reserve ratios for Schwab Bank's loan portfolio came in at 0.77 percent, 0.45 percent and 0.52 percent, respectively, at month-end December.
Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking accounts totaled 671,000, with $11.6 billion in balances. Client assets managed by Windhaven amounted to $13.6 billion, and total assets under management in Schwab ETFs were $8.6 billion.
Shares of Charles Schwab were down 13 cents, or 0.85 percent, to $15.16 in Wednesday's regular trading session on the NYSE.