(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG weathered a slump in fixed-income trading better than peers, prompting it to raise its revenue target for next year even as it scrapped a cost goal after a series of unexpected expenses.
Germany’s largest lender said on Wednesday that revenue will exceed a guidance given at its investor day last year, after fixed-income trading declined just 11% in the second quarter, beating analysts estimates as well as Wall Street’s biggest investment banks. The lender will no longer provide an absolute cost guidance for next year, previously set at 16.7 billion euros ($19.7 billion).
Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing is approaching the final stretch of a four-year turnaround plan that has been kept on track by surging investment banking profits, while the lender’s other divisions have largely missed their targets. While rising interest rates may give a boost to the corporate bank and the private bank as the trading boom normalizes, Sewing previously flagged that expenses including higher contributions to industry funds and a recent German court verdict voiding fee increases for millions of retail clients were threatening his savings goal.
Deutsche Bank on Wednesday said total unexpected expenses will raise costs by about 400 million euros above its initial target. It also cited the need to invest in controls, as it contends with a growing list of legal and regulatory issues that have emerged since the beginning of the year. Higher business volumes are also driving up costs, the lender said.
Deutsche Bank’s trading performance compares with a 43% average decline at the big U.S. investment banks, none of which was able to match the volumes of last year’s second quarter in fixed-income trading when global capital markets gyrated on the back of the Covid-19 crisis. Bank of America fared best with a 38% drop, with the rest suffering declines of more than 40%.
Deutsche Bank in April raised the outlook for the investment bank this year, guiding that revenue for the unit and the bank as a whole would remain stable, after previously predicting a decline.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement