Societe Generale’s equities trading business proved to be the only business line at its corporate and investment bank that grew on an underlying basis against the same period last year, as the French bank refocuses on its core strengths.

The French bank this morning published its first quarter results for 2013, which showed that revenues were down across most investment banking business lines after stripping out the effects of the accounting impact of its own debt and the cost of last year's sale of loans.