Deutsche Bank Records Highest Quarter Profit Before Tax in Q1 2023

Deutsche Bank today announced its highest quarter profit before tax since 2013. The bank's profit before tax for the first quarter of 2023 (Q1 2023) reached €1.9 billion, up 12% year on year. The post-tax profit rose by 8% to €1.3 billion.

Post-tax return on average tangible shareholders' equity (RoTE) was 8.3%, up from 8.1% in the prior year quarter. Post-tax return on average shareholders' equity was 7.4% in the quarter, up from 7.2% in the first quarter of 2022. Diluted earnings per share were € 0.61, up from € 0.55 in the prior year quarter. The cost/income ratio improved to 71%, from 73% in the first quarter of 2022.

Deutsche Bank's results include annual bank levies of € 473 million, recognized in the first quarter. Assuming an equal distribution of the annual bank levy across the four quarters of 2023 and a three-month pro rata (three twelfths) share in the first quarter, profit before tax would have been € 2.2 billion and post-tax profit would have been € 1.6 billion in the quarter. Post-tax RoTE would have been 10.0% and the cost/income ratio would have been 67%, reflecting substantial progress towards the bank's 2025 targets for post-tax RoTE of above 10% and a cost/income ratio below 62.5%.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank, commented: "Our first quarter results demonstrate the relevance of our Global Hausbank strategy to our clients and underscore that we are well on track to meeting or exceeding our 2025 targets. We aim to accelerate execution of our strategy through a number of measures announced today: raising our ambitions for operational efficiency, boosting capital efficiency to drive returns and support shareholder distributions, and seizing opportunities to outperform on our revenue growth targets. Strong organic capital generation enables us to re-affirm our commitment to distributions and we are preparing to conduct further share buybacks later this year."