The Dax is the Dax after all: for the return of Commerzbank to the first German Borsen league at the end of February 2023, CEO Manfred Knof almost exuberantly rang the bell for the start of trading on.
Germany’s second-largest lender Commerzbank AG yesterday reported a third quarter (3Q) net loss of €69 million (RM345 million) after provisions against a Covid-19 hit economy and a restructuring that will close branches and cut jobs. Operating profit dropped nearly two-thirds to €168 million, weighed down by risk provisions on its loan portfolio that doubled in a year due to the pandemic.
Commerzbank Revamp Mirrors Deutsche Bank’s, Minus Trading Boost
Bloomberg 2/4/2021 Steven Arons
(Bloomberg) Commerzbank AG’s restructuring plan echoes that of its biggest rival Deutsche Bank AG, but without the latter’s debt-trading profit engine to pull it through.
The Frankfurt-based lender said late Wednesday that it expects to post a loss of about 2.9 billion euros ($3.5 billion) for 2020, reflecting lower asset values and the cost of cutting about 10,000 jobs. The loss exceeds the 2.7 billion euros that analysts had estimated, and stands in contrast to Deutsche Bank’s announcement Thursday of its first annual profit since 2014.
New Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof’s plan to take Commerzbank back to profitability involves a similar kind of cost-cutting focus that Deutsche Bank chief Christian Sewing deployed in 2019 when he slashed his workforce by a fifth. While both lenders, which held merger talks in 2019, have struggled with the negati