The Paris-listed banking giant posted a 19 per cent jump in revenues at its private bank, while assets under management also increased.

Societe Generale, the Paris-listed banking giant, said its private banking revenues rose by 19 per cent to €858 million ($1.169 million) last year from a year before, driven by “excellent client-driven revenues in France and Luxembourg as well as a dynamic recovery in Asia”.

The private banking arm had total assets under management of €84.5 billion at the end of last year; assets under management benefited from a positive inflow of €1.5 billion last year, it said in a statement today.

The statement made no reference to widely-circulated speculation that it is considering a sale of its Asian private banking business (Asia’s DBS has been mentioned as a front-runner in purchase talks). The bank, has, in recent weeks, highlighted plans to boost the reach of its domestic French private banking arm, and to bolster its UK-based operations. (For more on those developments, see here and here.) The firm said it will set out new corporate strategy on 13 May.

The French bank said net banking income at global banking and investor solutions arm – a unit containing corporate and investment banking, asset and wealth management, and securities services – posted a rise in net banking  income in 2013 of 10.9 per cent on a like-for-like basis, standing at €8.71 billion. In the last three months of 2013, net banking income rose 5.3 per cent, like-for-like, standing at €2.006 billion. Group net income at this segment surged 75.6 per cent year-on-year to €1.337 billion.

For the entire group, net banking income in 2013 and group net income amounted to, respectively, €22.831 billion (up 4.3 per cent year-on-year) and €2.175 billion (up 2.8 per cent).

In the light of these results, SocGen said, its board of directors proposes at its annual general meeting to pay a dividend of €1.0 per share, in cash.

Discussing its moves to cut its old legacy portfolio of risk assets – the bank had had exposure to Greek debt, for example – SocGen said its balance sheet restructuring had put the firm on a stronger footing; non-investment grade assets “now represent a minimal proportion of the bank’s assets (€709 million) and will no longer affect results in 2014.

The bank said it will show how it intends to achieve a return on equity of 10 per cent by the end of 2015 in a presentation on 13 May.