Frankfurt, Jul 24, 2024 -Deutsche Bank said Wednesday it had suffered a loss of 143 million euros ($155 million) in the second quarter, as it booked a huge litigation provision over a legacy issue.
The group’s revenues meanwhile rose by two percent from the same period a year ago, reaching 7.6 billion euros.
However, the bank took a 1.3-billion-euro charge related to the takeover of Postbank AG that dragged down its bottom line and swung the lender to its first quarterly loss in four years.
Chief executive Christian Sewing pointed to Deutsche Bank’s “operating strength” and said it was “well on track towards meeting our 2025 goals and our distribution commitments to shareholders.”
Shares in Deutsche were down more than six percent in mid-morning trading in Frankfurt.
The Postbank woes “overshadowed an otherwise successful second quarter”, said Juergen Molnar, an analyst at RoboMarkets.
Deutsche Bank has undergone major restructuring in recent years, seeking to rely more on retail and corporate banking after an aggressive shift in the early 2000s into investment banking left it snared by multiple scandals.
The strategy has largely paid off, with the bank reaping greater profits.
But investors can still be jittery about Deutsche — its shares were hammered last year after the collapse of some US regional lenders and the enforced takeover of Credit Suisse by rival UBS.
Currently, the bank was also facing weakness in its home market, with Germany being the only major advanced economy that shrank in 2023.
A string of indicators had indicated earlier this year that recovery was returning but in recent weeks, those hopes have been tempered by weaker data.
Looking ahead, Deutsche confirmed it expected revenues of around 30 billion euros this year.
Sewing also said “continued cost and risk discipline” was keeping the bank’s 2025 goals within reach, including a revenue target of 32 billion euros.
hmn-mfp/cw
