Deutsche Mulls Raising Cost Savings Target As Q1 Disappoints

 | Mar 28, 2019 07:43AM ET

Deutsche Bank AG (DE:DBKGn) (NYSE:DB) is mulling to set fresh cost cutting targets, as reported by a German newspaper — Handelsblatt. Per people familiar with the matter, the bank experienced weak first-quarter performance.

Particularly, the investment banking segment remained dull during first three months of 2019, most notably in the area of securities trading.

Previously, Deutsche had plans to reduce adjusted costs by €1 billion to €21.8 billion in 2019 through additional headcount reductions, synergies from German retail merger and completion of the sale of Portuguese retail operations.

"With regard to the developments in the first quarter the board is assessing whether cost cuts planned so far are sufficient," per a Reuters article that quoted the German paper.

Merger talks with Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) could be another reason for raising cost savings target as Deutsche is facing criticism from the unions regarding the anticipated layoffs. Further, some major shareholders at the German lender have also expressed concerns about the deal.

On the back of some restructuring initiatives, Deutsche reported full-year net income of €341 million ($389.4 million) for 2018 against net loss of €735 million at the end of 2017. Yet, it faced a number of headwinds throughout the year.

The German bank’s name was included in the list of troubled banks, after it failed the second level of the Federal Reserve’s stress test on qualitative shortcomings. Further, its credit rating of a class of debt cut was downgraded to the lowest ranking. Also, it continued to encounter a number of legal probes, which kept costs elevated.

Shares of Deutsche have declined 24.8% over the past six months on the NYSE compared with 2.7% fall recorded by the Zacks Investment Research

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