Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- BNP Paribas SA, France’s largest bank, said third-quarter profit rose 45 percent, helped by the purchase of Fortis assets and a rebound at the investment bank.

BNP Paribas rose 3.3 percent in Paris trading after reporting net income of 1.31 billion euros ($1.9 billion), higher than the 1.26 billion-euro median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The bank, like New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., took advantage of competitors’ woes to make takeovers during the financial crisis. Led by Chief Executive Officer Baudouin Prot, BNP Paribas became the biggest by deposits in the euro region with the 10.4 billion-euro purchase of Fortis’s banking units in Belgium and Luxembourg this year.

BNP Paribas “is one of the winners of the crisis,” said Jaap Meijer, a London-based analyst at Evolution Securities Ltd. who has a “buy” rating on the stock. “BNP Paribas has no issues with toxic assets, it’s extremely well covered for bad loans and it’s well capitalized.”

BNP Paribas advanced 1.73 euros to 54.36 euros in Paris. The stock is up 85 percent since the start of 2009, outpacing the 35 percent gain by Societe Generale SA, France’s No. 2 bank by market value. Societe Generale reported a doubling in third- quarter net income to 426 million euros yesterday.

Capital Increase

BNP Paribas’ equity tier 1 ratio, a gauge of a bank’s ability to absorb losses, rose to 7.8 percent by the end of September from 7.2 percent on June 30 as the company raised 4.3 billion euros last month to pay back state funds.

The bank was “very comfortable” with its tier 1 ratio at the end of the quarter, Prot said. Its cushion will allow BNP Paribas “to absorb the incremental capital requirement from market risks” that will be put in place under guidelines from the Group of 20 nations, Prot said in a video posted on the bank’s Web site.

BNP Paribas had 277 million euros of net income from Fortis in the quarter, after starting to integrate the purchase in May. The French bank won a seven-month battle to swallow the Belgian and Luxembourg banking assets of what was once Belgium’s largest financial-services company. BNP Paribas will hold a presentation on its plans for Fortis in Brussels on Dec. 1.

Pretax earnings at BNP Paribas’s corporate- and investment- banking unit amounted to 1.24 billion euros in the third quarter, beating the 764 million-euro estimate of analysts. Pretax profit at the investment-solutions unit, which includes asset management, private banking and insurance, almost tripled to 372 million euros in the quarter.

Ukraine Losses

BNP Paribas, like Deutsche Bank AG of Germany and Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Group AG, benefited in the quarter as improving stock markets and record low interest rates bolstered revenue from its equity and fixed-income businesses.

Revenue at BNP Paribas’s investment bank rose 43 percent to 2.93 billion euros from a year earlier, the company said.

Pretax earnings at BNP Paribas’s French consumer-banking unit fell 16 percent to 326 million euros, the bank said. Profit at its Italian consumer-banking unit declined 18 percent to 135 million euros. BNP Paribas’s consumer-banking networks in emerging markets posted a 79 million-euro pretax loss, compared with a 208 million-euro profit a year earlier, mostly hurt by the effects of the economic crisis in Ukraine, the bank said.

Cost of Risk

“Ukraine and consumer finance are issues of course, but in the bigger picture it doesn’t hurt the group much,’ Meijer said.

BancWest, the U.S. consumer-banking unit, had a pretax loss of 69 million euros, compared with a 50 million-euro profit a year ago, BNP Paribas said.

BNP Paribas’s provisions for doubtful loans increased 16 percent to 2.3 billion euros. Analysts estimated loan losses of 2.18 billion euros. Excluding about 330 million euros of provisions at Fortis, BNP Paribas’ provisions level was on a “plateau at a high level,” Prot said in an interview.

“I don’t buy the idea of a steep and fast decrease of the cost of risk,” Prot said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fabio Benedetti-Valentini in Paris at fabiobv@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 12:32 EST