Deutsche Bank net profit slides 8% in third quarter but beats expectations

Deutsche Bank on Wednesday reported a third-quarter net profit of 1.031 billion euros ($1.06 billion), slightly beating expectations despite an 8% fall on the previous year and ongoing struggles in the lender’s investment unit.

Analysts had expected a quarterly net profit attributable to shareholders of 997 million euros, according to LSEG data.

Net profit was 35% higher on the prior quarter despite the year-on-year dip. It was Deutsche Bank’s thirteenth straight profitable quarter since its large-scale restructuring launched in 2019.

For the same period in 2022, the German lender recorded a net profit of 1.115 billion euros on the back of higher interest rates and increased market volatility that boosted its fixed income and currencies trading business.

The bank delivered a strong performance in its corporate banking business — which benefits from the higher interest rate environment — where revenues rose 21% year-on-year to 1.89 billion euros.

However, it continued to see a slowdown in its investment arm, where net revenues fell 4% year-on-year to 2.27 billion euros and are down 12% in the first nine months of the year to 7.3 billion.

Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro that the investment banking unit’s performance is “pretty much in line with the market” on an underlying basis.

“What’s going on is the normalization of fixed income and currency revenues that we called for, especially in the macro businesses, so rates, foreign exchange and emerging markets, which benefited last year from the very high levels of volatility,” von Moltke said.

There has been a rotation of the bank’s activity focusing onto other products, notably credit and financing, which have seen strength, he said.

Other highlights for the quarter:

• Total revenues stood at 7.13 billion euros, up from 6.92 billion in the third quarter of 2022.

• The provision for credit losses was 200 million euros, compared to 350 million in the same quarter of last year.
• Common equity tier one CET1 capital ratio, a measure of financial resilience, was 13.9% versus 13.8% at the end of the second quarter and 13.3% in the third quarter of 2022.
• Return on tangible equity stood at 7.3%, up from 5.4% the previous quarter.