Deutsche Bank Plans Share Buybacks After Record Q3 Profits

German multinational investment bank Deutsche Bank AG, on Wednesday reported a record profit before tax of $2.48 billion for the third quarter of 2024, up 31% y-o-y, and said that it was seeking authorisation from shareholders for further share repurchases.

The profit before taxes included a partial release of approximately $474.43 million in litigation provisions driven by progress on settlements relating to the bank’s takeover of Postbank AG, the German lender said.

Excluding the Postbank litigation release, profit before tax was $1.94 billion, up 6%, compared with profit before tax of $1.83 billion in the third quarter of 2023 and a third-quarter record. Post-tax profit was $1.83 billion, up 39% y-o-y, or $1.4 billion excluding the Postbank litigation release, up 8%, compared with post-tax profit of $1.29 billion in the prior year quarter.

Deutsche Bank’s CEO Christian Sewing said that in these three months, they made important progress in putting legacy litigation matters behind them, while also producing a record third-quarter profit in the operating business. This reflected the bank’s strong franchise, positive momentum across our businesses, its sustained cost discipline.

“Our Global Hausbank is ideally positioned to help clients navigate the uncertainties in today’s environment, and this reinforces our confidence that we will continue on our path of profitable growth and exceed our original goals for capital distributions to shareholders. We have now sought authorization for further share repurchases,” he said.

Deutsche Bank Chief Financial Officer James von Moltke said that their nine-month 2024 results underlined the bank’s operating strength and they have consistently delivered on their guidance for both revenue growth and cost discipline; the capital and balance sheet are strong, and overall loan book quality remains solid.

“Looking ahead, this gives us confidence that we will meet our $32.35 billion revenue guidance for the year 2024 and that our continued revenue momentum, cost efficiencies, capital strength and moderating credit provisions all put us on track to deliver on our 2025 goals,” Moltke added.

Net Revenues

The net revenues were $8.09 billion in the third quarter, up 5% over the third quarter of 2023. Commissions and fee income grew 5% y-o-y to $2.7 billion, reflecting strong performance of fee and commissions-based businesses, and net interest income in the key segments of the banking book was broadly stable in an environment of further normalisation of interest rates as anticipated.

For the first nine months, revenues rose 3% to $24.69 billion, driven by commissions and fee income which grew 9% to $8.3 billion, in line with the expected glide path toward the bank’s full-year 2024 guidance for revenues of around $32.25 billion.