The CEO of Germany’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, has admitted that poor quarterly and yearly profit reports could result in the company’s exit from certain businesses.
These business closures could signal the death knell for investments in specific markets as the bank tightens its belt in a turbulent start to 2025.
Shares in the German giant fell 4% after reports were published signalling the company’s projected buyback of some 750 million euro shares.
CEO Christian Sewing published a memo to employees and certain business partners that showed the company’s determined outlook in these troubling times.
Deutsche Bank looks to offset poor quarter and yearly profit report
Sewing wrote, “We have always said that 2025 will be decisive for us. At the end of this year, we will be judged by whether we have been successful with our transformation and growth strategy.”
The German company has continued to hemorrhage money across the past decade, but the results published in 2024 showed another year for the company in the black.
This net profit of 2.7 million Euros signalled the company’s fifth stable year, and the signs are showing that growth is hard to come by for the European banking giant.
Sewing still considered the past year successful, saying, “2024 was a vital year for Deutsche Bank. Our strong and growing operating performance reflects the turnaround achieved in recent years. We delivered another year of revenue and business growth, maintained tight operating cost discipline, acted decisively to put significant legacy costs behind us and continued to invest in our platform.”
CEO Sewing has been attempting to turn Deutsche Bank around since 2018. The company recorded its worst financial results of the last twenty years in 2014.
The company is focused on a healthier next quarter and is eyeing next year’s financial results. Sewing said, “2025 is not only the year in which we must prove ourselves; it is also the year in which we want to lay the foundations to achieve our long-term vision and become the European Champion.”
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