Stock market investments: Royal Bank of Canada reports higher earnings in fiscal 2010

Royal Bank of Canada (Toronto symbol RY), is Canada’s largest bank, with total assets of $726.2 billion. The bank is one of the stock market investments we analyze in our Successful Investor newsletter. The bank has about 79,000 employees, and serves close to 18 million personal, business, public-sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 50 other countries around the world. In its 2010 fiscal year, which ended October 31, 2010, Royal earned $5.2 billion, or $3.46 a share. That’s up 35.4% from $3.9 billion, or $2.57 a share, in fiscal 2009. The fiscal 2010 earnings figure includes a $116-million loss on the sale of one of the bank’s main holdings, Liberty Life Insurance Company. Without the loss on Liberty Life and other unusual items, Royal would have earned $5.4 billion, up from $4.9 billion a year earlier. Revenue was $28.3 billion, down from $29.1 billion in fiscal 2009. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, the bank earned $1.1 billion, or $0.74 a share. That’s down 9.4% from $1.2 billion, or $0.82 a share, in the same period a year earlier. However, if you exclude the loss on Liberty Life, earnings were flat. The stock market investment’s revenue in the latest quarter was $7.2 billion, down 3.4% from $7.5 billion. We’re doing a special analysis of Royal Bank and Canada’s other four big banks in the next issue of The Successful Investor. Subscribe today to make sure you don’t miss out. Click here to learn how.

Jim is an associate editor at TSI Network. He is the lead reporter and analyst for The Successful Investor and Wall Street Stock Forecaster and a member of the Investment Planning Committee. Jim has held the Chartered Financial Analyst designation since 1992 and spent more than a decade at the Financial Post DataGroup before joining TSI Network. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto.