Royal Bank of Canada today reported a bigger fourth-quarter profit despite taking charges for Enron-related litigation and hurricane-related reinsurance claims.

Net income rose to $522 million, or 79¢ a share, for the quarter ended October 31, up from $514 million, or 78¢ a share, in the year-before quarter.

The bank’s net income from continuing operations in the quarter decreased by 21% to $543 million, mainly due to the charges related to Enron and the hurricanes.

The bank recorded two charges for the fourth quarter. One was a pretax charge of $591 million as a reserve for Enron-related litigation, for an after-tax impact of $326 million, or 50¢ a share.

The second charge was $203 million, or 31¢ a share, for estimated net claims related to damaged caused by hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma during the quarter. Royal has a reinsurance business in the United States.

The bank said total revenue rose to $4.82 billion from $4.57 billion. Loan loss provisions, money set aside for bad loans, rose slightly to $103 million in the quarter from $97 million in the year-before period.

Return on equity, a key measure of profitability, slipped to 10.6% from 11.3%.

Despite hurricanes and Enron claims, the bank brought in record annual earnings of $3.4 billion, up 21% from the prior year.

Return on equity was 18% for the year ended, up by 2.4 percentage points.

“The increase largely reflected strong revenue growth across most of our businesses, which was supported by the strong North American economy and the low-interest-rate environment,” the bank said in a release.