The largest German money house has presented good figures for 2021.
(Photo: Reuters)
Frankfurt Despite the pandemic and low interest rates, Germany’s largest financial institution has earned very well again: In 2021, the institute made a profit before taxes of around 3.4 billion euros, as Deutsche Bank announced on Thursday morning. This corresponds to a tripling compared to the previous year.
After taxes, the balance sheet stood at 2.5 billion euros, more than four times as much as in 2020. After deducting interest payments to the holders of certain bonds, the bottom line was a good 1.9 billion euros.
In 2020 as a whole, Deutsche Bank made a profit again for the first time after five years of losses in a row with 113 million euros.
Even a weak fourth quarter could not cloud the strong annual result: In the fourth quarter, the pre-tax profit halved compared to the same quarter of the previous year to 82 million euros. One reason for this was the cost of implementing the transformation of EUR 456 million, Deutsche Bank said.
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The annual result is better than expected. On average, analysts had forecast net profits of 2.1 billion euros for 2021.
“All four business areas are developing as planned or even better, and we have made faster progress than expected in reducing old stocks,” summarized CEO Christian Sewing.
The expected costs of the group restructuring initiated in 2019 have been almost completely digested. In 2021, the bank also benefited from the fact that it had to set aside significantly less money for possible loan defaults than in the first year of the corona pandemic.
The biggest profit maker was again investment banking, in which the Dax group earns money by trading bonds and currencies, for example. After two zero rounds, shareholders should again receive a dividend of 20 cents per share for the 2021 financial year, as the bank announced on Wednesday evening.
The bank had already announced on Thursday evening that it intends to distribute capital to shareholders again after a long dry spell. In the first half of 2022, the money house wants to buy back its own shares for 300 million euros and pay a dividend of 20 cents per share for 2021.
Overall, this would mean a distribution of around 700 million euros to the shareholders. This is a first step towards the goal of paying out five billion euros to shareholders over time. The last time the institute paid a dividend of eleven cents for the 2018 financial year.
This is an important signal for the analysts at Mediobanca. The real news is that after the tough restructuring, the ECB’s supervisors would allow the bank to distribute capital again. The experts are now assuming that the bank will announce further buyback plans of up to one billion euros a year at its investor day in March.
With material from Reuters
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