BofA Profit Up on FleetBoston Purchase

Bank of America Corp. said Monday that first-quarter profit surged 75% to a record, on increased corporate and consumer lending, higher trading income and the acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp.

Net income for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank rose to $4.7 billion, or $1.14 a share, from $2.68 billion, or 91 cents, a year earlier. Revenue increased 47% to $14.22 billion.

Excluding merger-related charges, profit was $1.16 a share. Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates on average expected a profit of 97 cents a share.

The quarter was the last in which year-earlier comparisons didn’t include results from Fleet, which Bank of America bought in April 2004 for $48 billion.

Results included $659 million of one-time gains on the sale of debt securities, and overall trading profit rose to $760 million from $3 million. Bank of America is the No. 3 U.S. bank based on year-end 2004 assets.

“It was an excellent quarter,” said Stephen Berman, a portfolio manager at Stein Roe Investment Counsel in New York. “They had respectable growth in revenue and net interest income, and had very good trading results.”

Chief Financial Officer Marc Oken said the bank benefited from lending growth, especially from small and mid-size business borrowers. He expects core lending to increase about 4% this year and fees to grow 7% to 9%.

Bank of America shares rose 45 cents, or 1%, to $44.73 on the New York Stock Exchange. They have fallen 5% this year.

Loans and leases rose 41% to $529.5 billion, and deposits rose 45% to $630 billion.

Lending income increased 35% to $8.07 billion, while fee income jumped 65% to $6.15 billion.

Bank of America added a net 759,000 savings and 610,000 checking accounts, both records, and 1.34 million credit card accounts.

Merger-related savings totaled $437 million.