FRANKFURT, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank’s (DBKGn.DE) fourth-quarter profit surged, exceeding expectations and contributing to a third consecutive year of profit that was helped by higher interest rates and buoyant trading but damped by a slump in dealmaking that has shaken the industry.
Net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.803 billion euros ($1.99 billion) in the three months ending Dec. 31, figures published on Thursday showed. That compares with a profit of 145 million euros a year earlier, and it is better than analyst expectations for a profit of around 951 million euros.
It was a tenth consecutive quarter of profit, making for the longest streak in the black in at least a decade.
For the full year, profit was 5.025 billion euros, up from 1.940 billion a year ago and better than expectations for 4.174 billion euros. It was the largest annual profit since 2007, Deutsche said, and was helped by a 1.4 billion euro tax benefit.
Germany’s biggest bank exceeded a key profit target – so-called return on tangible equity of 8% – with a figure of 9.4%, a milestone that Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing had set for the bank when it embarked on a major overhaul in 2019.
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“Over the past three and a half years we have successfully transformed Deutsche Bank,” said Sewing, who was promoted to the top job in 2018 to turn Deutsche around after a series of embarrassing and costly regulatory failings.
($1 = 0.9074 euros)
Reporting by Tom Sims and Marta Orosz; Editing by Paul Carrel, Rachel More, Janane Venkatraman
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