Deutsche Bank tops estimates
Deutsche Bank’s third-quarter pre-tax profits beat analyst expectations as retail banking and asset management helped offset investment banking profits stunted as the euro zone crisis hurt client activity.
Weaker market activity forced Germany’s flagship lender to drop ambitious full-year targets earlier this month and announce 500 job cuts. It did not provide a fresh outlook on Tuesday.
The Frankfurt-based bank said its third-quarter pre-tax profit came to 942m euros (£819m).
“Overall, the numbers look ok and I cannot see a fly in the ointment so far,” a Frankfurt-based trader said.
“Something that may disappoint, however, is the fact that they haven’t given an outlook.”
In late July, the Frankfurt-based bank had said reaching its 10bn euros pre-tax profit target for 2011 depended on “swift and sustained” resolution of the European sovereign debt crisis and a return to a significantly improved operating environment in the second half of 2011.
Pretax profit from the corporate and investment bank came to 329 million euros, down from 1.3 billion euros in the year-earlier period as trust services, trade finance and cash management only partially offset a 34 percent slump in sales and trading.
The lender said results at the Corporate Banking & Securities division were hit by operating costs relating to an indirect tax position in the third quarter.
Third-quarter revenues from fixed income, currencies and commodities fell 49 per cent on average from the second quarter across JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley, after stripping out accounting gains.
Deutsche Bank had a total 4.79bn euros worth of exposure to the sovereign debt of Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal at the end of the third quarter, the bank said. Exposure to Greece alone was 881 million euros.
It emerged earlier this week that the European Central Bank doubled purchases of sovereign bonds to prevent a disorderly Greek default.