Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest lender, said Thursday that litigation costs and write-downs pushed it to a record net loss in the third quarter.
Deutsche Bank said in a statement it booked a net loss of 6.01 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in the period from July to September compared with a loss of 94 million euros a year earlier.
The bank’s new co-chief executive John Cryan described it as a “highly disappointing result.”
Earnings were hit by write-downs worth 5.8 billion euros in the corporate banking and securities division as well as the private and business clients section of the bank, Deutsche said.
In addition, Deutsche Bank took a charge of 649 million euros on its investment in China’s Hua Xia Bank and set aside a further 1.2 billion euros in provisions for regulatory and litigation matters, Cryan explained.
On top of this, “our revenues were impacted by challenging market conditions with persistent low interest rates and uncertainty around the (US) Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy,” he said.
Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank said that its key capital ratio — a measure of its financial strength — rose slightly to 11.5 percent, “partly reflecting lower risk weighted assets and leverage exposures, and our decision not to recommend a dividend for the year,” Cryan said.
“Revenues in core businesses held up, despite mixed business conditions during the quarter with market volatility in August and September,” he added.