Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 28, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 25, 2026
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Erste Group's dividend and buyback plans led to a 5.2% drop in shares as analysts were disappointed with the amounts. The bank's net profit was below forecasts.
By Tristan Veyet
(Reuters) -Erste Group said on Friday it would return cash to shareholders through an annual dividend and a share buyback programme, but the amount disappointed some analysts, sending the Austrian lender's shares lower.
The company said it would pay out 41.2% of its 2024 adjusted net profit as dividends and 23.7% via a share buyback programme.
Vienna-based Erste Group's shares were 5.2% lower at 1123 GMT, the worst performers on the Austrian traded index and the pan-european STOXX 600 Banks index.
"The amount of dividend in combination with the share buyback is slightly disappointing for us and it is slightly lower than we expected," analysts at J&T Banka wrote in a note.
Fourth-quarter operating profit of 1.39 billion euros ($1.44 billion) and a 7.3% rise in net interest income to 1.94 billion euros beat expectations but net profit came in 6% below analysts' forecast.
"Our results show that we are active in Europe's growth region, with two-thirds of our profits coming from our banks in Central and Eastern Europe," CEO Peter Bosek said in a statement.
For 2025, the company aims to achieve a return on tangible equity of around 15% and an operating result broadly in line with last year.
($1 = 0.9630 euros)
(Reporting by Tristan Veyet in Gdansk; Editing by Varun H K, Kirsten Donovan)
The main topic is Erste Group's announcement of a dividend and share buyback program, which led to a drop in their share price.
Shares fell because analysts were disappointed with the dividend and share buyback amounts announced by Erste Group.
Erste Group aims to achieve a 15% return on tangible equity and maintain an operating result similar to last year by 2025.
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