Deutsche Bank posted a €1.9bn net loss for the fourth quarter, as its performance was weighed down by the cost of its $7.2bn mortgage mis-selling settlement with the US Department of Justice.
Germany’s biggest bank took €1.6bn of litigation charges in the final three months of the year, the bulk of which related to the DoJ settlement, which chief executive John Cryan had made one of his priorities.
The fourth quarter loss, which was slightly better than the €2.1bn net loss that Deutsche posted in the same period a year earlier took Deutsche to a €1.4bn net loss for the year, down from a loss of €6.8bn a year earlier.
Mr Cryan said the results had been “heavily impacted by decisive management action taken to improve and modernise the bank, as well as by market turbulence for Deutsche Bank”.
However, he said that the bank had “proved our resilience in a particularly tough year,” pointing out that Deutsche’s capital and liquidity ratios had improved.
Deutsche’s common equity tier one ratio, a closely-watched measure of financial strength, finished the year at 11.9 per cent, up from 11.1 per cent at the end of the third quarter, as Deutsche cut back risk-weighted assets.
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