Deutsche Bank: Price explosion despite legal setbacks!

On February 1, 2025, Deutsche Bank shares recorded an increase of 0.5 percent in XETRA trading and reached a price of EUR 18.99. The share's high was EUR 19.19, while the opening price was EUR 19.06. The trading volume was 3,465,458 shares. Compared to the 52-week high of EUR 19.63, which was reached on January 29, 2025, the current price is 3.27 percent lower. The 52-week low was recorded at EUR 11.52 on February 9, 2024, and the current price is 64.75 percent above that low. A dividend of EUR 0.450 was announced for 2023 and an expected dividend of EUR 0.679 for 2024. The average fair value of the share is EUR 20.66.

Deutsche Bank's financial conference took place on October 23, 2024, at which the figures for the third quarter of 2024 were published. Profit in the third quarter of 2024 was EUR 0.74 per share, compared to EUR 0.50 a year ago. In addition, sales were EUR 16.59 billion, which represents an increase of 8.87 percent compared to the previous year. The key figures for the first quarter of 2025 will be presented on April 29, 2025 and the profit forecast for 2024 has been set at EUR 2.44 per share.

Decline in profits and legal challenges

In 2024, various legal disputes, particularly surrounding the Postbank takeover, had a significant impact on Deutsche Bank's profits. According to a report by tagesschau.de These legal disputes caused costs of around 1.7 billion euros. As a result, profit before taxes fell by 7 percent to almost 5.3 billion euros, while the surplus for shareholders fell by 36 percent to 2.7 billion euros. Deutsche Bank boss Christian Sewing described 2024 as an “important transition year”. A significantly reduced profit was recorded in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The current focus is also on legal disputes surrounding the Postbank takeover, in which the Cologne Higher Regional Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Deutsche Bank plans to appeal this ruling to the Federal Court of Justice. The bank also faces challenges in Poland, particularly in relation to foreign currency loans, which led to a capital increase of 310 million euros. Despite these difficulties, the bank's investment business recorded a 15 percent increase in income to 10.6 billion euros in 2024, and the fund subsidiary DWS achieved record inflows with assets under management of over 1 trillion euros.

Deutsche Bank is optimistic for 2025, is planning capital distributions of a total of 2.1 billion euros to shareholders and intends to keep the cost-income ratio below 65 percent. According to Sewing, cost discipline remains a top priority for the bank.