Deutsche Bank AG
The German lender reported full-year 2017 net loss of €497 million, down from a net loss of €1.36 billion a year earlier. The result included a noncash charge of approximately €1.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 arising from a valuation adjustment on the bank's U.S. deferred tax assets as a result of the new U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Excluding the impact of the DTA-related charge, Deutsche Bank said it would have made a full-year 2017 net income of around €900 million.
Pretax net income for the year came in at €1.29 billion, compared to a pretax net loss of €810 million a year earlier, mainly driven by a year-over-year decline in impairments of goodwill and intangibles to €21 million from €1.26 billion and in litigation charges to €213 million from €2.40 billion.
"We have made progress, but we are not yet satisfied with our results," CEO John Cryan said. He stressed, however, that the lender is "firmly on the path to producing growth and higher returns with sustained discipline on costs and risks."
He added that the merger of Deutsche Postbank AG and Deutsche Bank Privat- und Geschäftskunden AG, as well as the partial IPO of its asset management division, now called DWS, are both "advancing well." The bank said it expects to execute the partial listing of DWS "in the earliest available window."
For the fourth quarter of 2017, the bank's net loss widened on a yearly basis to €2.19 billion from €1.89 billion.
Net revenues for the quarter came in at €5.71 billion, down from the year-ago €7.07 billion.
Provision for credit losses fell to €129 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 from €492 million a year earlier.
Litigation expenses for the quarter declined year over year to €131 million from €1.59 billion, while impairment of goodwill and intangibles also dropped, to €15 million from €1.02 billion. Restructuring and severance costs, meanwhile, totaled €440 million, compared to the year-ago €114 million.
The bank's risk-weighted assets stood at €344 billion at the end of 2017, compared to €358 billion at 2016-end.
At the end of December 2017, the bank's fully loaded CRR/CRD4 common equity Tier 1 capital ratio stood at 14.0% at the end of 2017, compared to 13.8% at the end of September 2017 and 11.8% at 2016-end. On a phased-in basis, the CET1 ratio was 14.8% at 2017-end, compared to 14.6% at the end of September 2017 and 13.4% at 2016-end.
The bank's fully loaded CRR/CRD4 leverage ratio stood at 3.8% in 2017-end, unchanged from the end of September 2017 and up from 3.5% at 2016-end. On a phased-in basis, the leverage ratio was 4.1% at 2017-end, compared to 4.2% at the end of September 2017 and unchanged from the year-ago period.
