Frankfurt (Reuters) – The Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank (DB) Christian Sewing described 2025 as a “year of the balance sheet” on Thursday, while the deadline for ambitious projects of the first bank in Germany in terms of costs and profitability.
The holding of the general meeting of DB gives the shareholders an opportunity to confront the management, the group entering the final stretch of its three -year plan, the objectives of which were deemed too ambitious by certain analysts.
“We know how important 2025 is for us as a bank. It is the year of the balance sheet,” Christian Sewing told shareholders.
Among the objectives set, DB must achieve a cost/income ratio of less than 65% and a yield of tangible funds – a key measure of its profitability – greater than 10%.
According to analysts, on the basis of a consensus published this week by DB, the banking group will not manage to achieve these two objectives.
For the chairman of the executive board, however, DB is “clearly on the right track”.
Andreas Thomae de Deka Investment, who must express himself at the General Assembly, should call on management to ensure that a larger share of the profits comes from stable activity sectors, such as retail banking, rather than the investment bank.
As part of an overhaul in 2019, Deutsche Bank undertook to reduce its dependence on the income of the investment bank, but the results of this approach were mixed.
“You finally have to hold what you have been promising for years,” said Andreas Thomae, according to a preliminary copy of his intervention.
(Written by Tom Sims and Matthias Inverardi, Etienne Breban, edited by Augustin Turpin)
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