Deutsche Bank AG (DB) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Q1 2024 Fixed Income Conference Call. I am Francine, the Chorus Call operator. (Operator Instructions) and the conference is being recorded.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. (Operator Instructions)

At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the conference over to Philip Teuchner, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon or good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. On the call, our Group Treasurer, Richard Stewart, will take us through some fixed income-specific topics. For the subsequent Q&A session, we also have our CFO, James von Moltke, with us to answer your questions.

The slides that accompany the topics are available for download from our website at db.com. After the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions.

Before we get started, I just want to remind you that the presentation may contain forward-looking statements, which may not develop as we currently expect. Therefore, please take note of the precautionary warning at the end of our materials.

With that, let me hand over to Richard.

Thank you, Philip, and welcome from me. In February, we laid out a clear path to our 2025 objectives for financial performance and capital distributions, and we have delivered in line with our objectives and targets. Let me unpack some of the drivers of our first quarter results on Slide 1.

Preprovision profit was up 11% year-on-year to EUR 2.5 billion and more than 20% higher since we launched our Global Hausbank strategy. This reflected continued progress on driving operating leverage, which is a core element of our strategy execution.

We increased revenues in our operating divisions by 3% year-on-year while group revenues were up 1% on a reported basis. Group revenues include Corporate & Other, which tends to add some level of volatility into our revenue line.

As committed, we delivered growth in noninterest revenues and saw an increase of 11% year-on-year in commissions and fee income, mainly in divisions where we made investments last year.

Net interest income remained stable in our banking books, but declined on a reported basis as expected.

We reduced adjusted costs by 6% year-on-year and 5% sequentially to around EUR 5 billion, in line with our guidance.

Now let me turn to the progress across our strategic dimensions on Slide 2. Starting with revenues, we have delivered a compound annual growth rate of 6% since 2021, in line with our raised target range of 5.5% to 6.5% from 2021 to 2025. As promised, we grew mainly in capital-light businesses with strong growth in Origination and Advisory as well as in the Private Bank and in Asset Management, supported by high inflows of assets under management underlying our franchise momentum. We aim to build on these developments as our franchise expands following our investments in growth initiatives across all business segments.

With net interest income resilience at the start of the year and growth in noninterest revenues, we feel we are well on our way to our 2025 revenue ambitions.

We continue to deliver on our EUR 2.5 billion operational efficiency program. We have completed measures with delivered or expected savings of EUR 1.4 billion, nearly 6% of our target, with around EUR 1 billion in savings already realized. The incremental efficiencies this quarter were driven by optimization of our businesses in Germany and the reshaping of our workforce in nonclient-facing roles.

We have further incremental measures already underway, including reengineering of our operating model via additional front-to-back improvements of product processes and harmonization of infrastructure capabilities. This gives us full confidence that we will deliver on our commitment on a quarterly run rate of adjusted cost of around EUR 5 billion in 2024 and total costs of around EUR 20 billion in 2025.

Finally, on capital efficiency, we achieved a further EUR 2 billion reduction in RWAs in the first quarter, bringing aggregate reductions to EUR 15 billion, already more than half our target range of EUR 25 billion to EUR 30 billion.

We continued to progress the capital efficiency measures with further reductions coming from data and process improvements as well as further securitizations.

Let us now take a look at provision for credit losses on Slide 3. Provision for credit losses in the first quarter was EUR 439 million, equivalent to 37 basis points of average range. The decline compared to the previous quarter was driven by a moderate Stage 1 and 2 releases of EUR 32 million due to improved macroeconomic forecast and model recalibration effects, which occurred in the prior quarter. Stage 3 provisions at EUR 471 million remained elevated at a similar level compared to the previous quarter. This included the continued weakness in the commercial real estate sector, mainly impacting the Investment Bank and the continued impact of the operational backlog in the Private Bank.

Our full year guidance for provisions is unchanged at the higher end of the range of 25 to 30 basis points of average loans. This reflects our expectations that provisions will remain elevated in the first half of the year and should gradually reduce in the second half of the year. The decline is expected to be driven by an improvement in the CRE sector and the partial reversal of backlog-related provisions in the private bank. Overall, the underlying quality of our loan portfolio remains solid.

Moving now to the development in our loan and deposit books over the quarter on Slide 4. All figures in the commentary are adjusted for FX effects. Overall, loans have remained essentially flat during the first quarter. Across segments, client demand has remained muted while we have seen encouraging momentum in O&A within the Investment Bank and the Private Bank.

Looking ahead, despite a challenging macro environment for lending businesses, we continue to expect growth in strategic areas by gaining market share.

Our deposit book grew by EUR 9 billion compared to last quarter. This growth has been most pronounced in the Corporate Bank with EUR 8 billion of inflows while growth in other segments was essentially flat.

We remain very pleased with the quality of our deposit portfolio as we benefit from a strong footprint in our German home market and from high diversification across client segments and products with little reliance on institutional wholesale funding.

For the remainder of the year, we expect a moderation of our deposit growth compared to prior quarters.

In the appendix, we provide further granularity around the quality of our loan and deposit portfolio.

Let's just now have a look at our net interest income on Slide 5. Net interest income for the group at EUR 3.1 billion decreased by approximately EUR 100 million compared to the previous quarter with the reduction being driven by accounting effects. As a reminder, these effects are revenue-neutral on a group level as a decrease in NII is offset by an increase in noninterest revenues.

Excluding these accounting effects, banking book NII was essentially flat as the decline in the Private Bank was offset by the increase in the Corporate Bank and lower funding costs in the Investment Bank and Corporate & Other.

The reduction in the Private Bank NII was largely driven by the nonrecurrence of favorable one-offs as well as the ongoing impact of beta normalization. On an absolute basis, NII in the Private Bank is in line with last quarter's guidance.

The increase in Corporate Bank NII was due to a positive one-off impact from a CLO recovery, which was accounted as NII with deposit betas showing a steady increase in line with our assumptions.

We expect to see Corporate Bank NII decline in the coming quarters as betas continue to normalize.

NII in FIC financing was essentially flat quarter-on-quarter. We are starting to see margin expansion on the asset side, which, if it continues, will help offset margin compression from beta normalization.

In summary, the development in the first quarter reinforces our expectation that we'll meet or improve on our prior guidance of a EUR 600 million reduction in banking book NII for 2024 relative to the prior year.

On Slide 6, we provide details on the sensitivity of our net interest income to interest rates. Our rate sensitivity is slightly lower compared to the prior quarter due to effects of beta normalization as well as the impact of increased hedging as we look to position the balance sheet for the current interest rate environment. Our sensitivity increases over time as a greater share of our portfolio comes due for renewal with the majority of our sensitivity in the later years coming from our euro books.

Given that our hedge portfolio has an average duration of between 4 and 5 years, more than 90% of our hedge income for 2024 is already locked in.

As we discussed last quarter, our strategy is to stabilize NII, reduce sensitivity to unexpected market moves, and at current rates, we would expect to see a long-term tailwind from the rollover of our hedge books at current long-term rates.

Moving to Slide 7, highlighting the development of our key liquidity metrics. With a daily average liquidity coverage ratio of 136%, we continued to operate with a robust liquidity position throughout the first quarter. The stock of EUR 222 billion of HQLA, of which about 95% are held in cash and Level 1 securities, was essentially flat compared to last quarter.

Deposit growth in the Corporate Bank facilitated the full repayment of our remaining EUR 15 billion of TLTRO. This included voluntary prepayments of EUR 12 billion, well ahead of scheduled maturity.

The surplus above the regulatory minimum slightly decreased by about EUR 4 billion to EUR 58 billion as a result of higher net cash outflows, mainly on the back of continued deposit growth.

The net stable funding ratio at 123% reflects the stability of our balance sheet despite the early repayments of TLTRO in the quarter. This corresponds to a surplus of EUR 112 billion above the regulatory requirement.

The available longer-term stable funding sources for the bank remain well diversified and are mainly supported by a robust deposit franchise, which continues contributing about 2/3 of the group's stable funding base. We aim to maintain this funding mix going forward.

Turning to capital on Slide 8. Our first quarter Common Equity Tier 1 ratio came in at 13.4% compared to 13.7% at year-end 2023. We had a strong capital supply this quarter and the sequential decline was driven by our distribution actions and plans together with business growth. 19 basis points of the decrease reflects the ECB approval for our EUR 675 million share buyback, which we commenced in March. Half of first quarter net income was deducted for future capital distributions in line with our 50% payout ratio guidance with the remainder supporting other deductions.

12 basis points of the decrease came from RWA growth. The increase in RWA is net of reduction due to RWA optimization achieved during the quarter.

Our capital ratios, whilst reduced quarter-on-quarter, remained well above regulatory requirements as shown on Slide 9. On the 1st of January this year, our Pillar 2 requirement has reduced following last year's SREP process. This has lowered our MDA level by 3 basis points for the CET1 ratio and by 5 basis points for the total capital ratio. Our CET1 MDA buffer now stands at 229 basis points or EUR 8 billion of CET1 capital.

Moving to Slide 10. At the end of the first quarter, our leverage ratio was 4.5%, 8 basis points lower compared to the previous quarter. The decline was primarily driven by lower Tier 1 capital, in line with the movement in CET1 capital.

Leverage exposure was materially unchanged with lower cash balances, offset by higher trading-related exposure.

We continue to operate with a significant loss-absorbing capacity well above all our requirements as shown on Slide 11. The MREL surplus, our most binding constraint, stood at EUR 16 billion at the end of the quarter, a comfortable level continuing to provide us with the flexibility to pause issuing new eligible liabilities instruments for approximately 1 year.

Looking ahead, we expect a slightly higher binding MREL requirement from the SRB in the second quarter of 2024, which will only marginally reduce the existing headroom.

Moving now to our issuance plan on Slide 12. We took advantage of the favorable market conditions in the first quarter to make further progress on completing our issuance plan. As of now, we have issued EUR 7 billion, which is close to 50% of the midpoint of our 2024 plan. Highlights included senior nonpreferred issuances in U.S. dollar, euro and Sing dollar, together with a CNY 3 billion senior preferred transaction, our third and largest panda bond to date.

We reaffirm the guidance of EUR 13 million to EUR 18 billion for the full year 2024 issuance plan and expect to be active across the capital stack for the remainder of the year.

Some of you have asked us about our approach when evaluating call decisions, particularly those coming up in 2025 for our AT1 securities. I can reiterate our previous guidance that we always assess the economics of any call decision, for example, the refinancing or replacement cost versus the [Q4 reset]. There may also be instances where there are additional impacts such as the FX revaluation impact for AT1 securities accounted for as equity, which we also consider.

Before going to your questions, let me conclude with a summary on Slide 13. The first quarter showed that the expected benefits from our investments are materializing and will help to drive growth in noninterest revenues while we have limited the downside on our interest income through our interest rate hedging activity. This demonstrates that our businesses are positioned for further growth, contributing to delivery of our revenue target of around EUR 30 billion in 2024.

We affirm our target to maintain our quarterly run rate of around EUR 5 billion of adjusted costs this year and around EUR 20 billion for the full year.

We expect provisions for the year to come at the higher end of our guidance range of 25 to 30 basis points of average loans. We're well positioned with our CET1 ratio of 13.4%, and we maintain a comfortable liquidity position above our targets.

Overall, our full focus remains on our progress through the execution of our strategy and delivering on our 2025 targets.

With that, let's turn to your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question today comes from Daniel David.

I have a couple of questions. You kind of referred to it partially with your remarks at the end of that, but with the capital instrument issuance of EUR 1 billion to EUR 2 billion in the plan per year, can you give us any steer what's informing the decision here, noting there isn't any calls or maturities this year, but clearly, there is next year?

And then separately, maybe related, how do you think from today's perspective regarding the [calls of 3 AT1s] that are up for call next year? Assuming that the economics vary deal by deal, would you make different decisions based on those numbers and how you see it? Any information would be great.

And then secondly, just in the earnings call yesterday, you're quite bullish on outperforming the prior guidance on NII. Can you remind us just the divisional trends you're seeing and how this might play out in 2025?

So I take the first question on the AT1. So you're right. I can just -- I alluded to it in my remarks, but just for clarification. So we stick with our guidance, as you say, for capital around EUR 1 billion to EUR 2 billion going from ATI and T2s in 2024. And we will update in due course when we reached a decision around which instruments and the timing of that.

In terms of calls, DB will continue to make decisions regarding the exercise of an issuer call closer to the exercise date, balancing the interest of all of our stakeholders. Our approach is based on economic factors, including the usefulness of the instrument for capital funding and rating agency metrics, as well as the cost of the instrument versus other alternatives.

I would note that the non-euro AT1 issuance, the historic FX balances also can play a role and can change that call decision even if that call is beneficial from a credit perspective. We would note that despite the improvement in AT1 spreads we've seen this year, the reset spreads on most instruments are still below current market new issue levels, which are reflected in some of those instruments traded below par. And obviously, we will continue to monitor this as we progress through 2024.

And in terms of the NII question, so yes, I think bullish is a pretty fair characterization. We touched on this in a few different answers to questions yesterday. So let me try and bring the overall picture together. In terms of magnitude, I think, James, our CFO, said yesterday, that's comfortably in the triple-digit millions for 2024 would be a reasonable assumption. And I'll reiterate that, but as you know, it's not our practice to be more specific at this stage. We see that benefit persisting into 2025 and beyond in fact. So you can think of that as a parallel shift up versus the prior guidance.

In terms of drivers of that improvement, there are a few different elements. So one is on the deposit side where we have been seeing some higher volumes as well as betas increasing, but still outperforming our initial model assumptions. And our loans, like a number of banks who have also reported, we are beginning to see some margin expansion as our forward funding rates are coming down and the client rates are remaining stable.

And then our funding costs are benefiting now from -- we're seeing that in the marketplace, our new issuance spreads continue to tighten relative to our peers and so less of an outlier. And obviously, we're pleased by that. It's, I think, reflective of sort of the rating upgrades that we've seen over the last year or so, but in part because of the continued delivery on our strategy.

And across the portfolio, really the only area we're not seeing a tailwind is in the loan volumes where, again, as with other banks, we're seeing less client demand at this point in the cycle.

And when I think about the divisional picture, I'll say this is largely unchanged from our prior guidance. So in our prepared remarks that James and Christian went through yesterday, we talked to the fact that for this quarter, the trends are a little bit impacted by one-offs, which is a sequential negative for the Private Bank and a positive one for the Corporate Bank.

So when we look through that, the underlying development by business is very much consistent with our previous messaging, which is that we expect a large decline in the Corporate Bank and then in the Private Bank over the full year. But as I just said, the overall outlook is looking more positive than we've guided at the start of the year. So hopefully that answers your questions, Daniel.

If I could just push you just maybe on the AT1. So I guess you've got a couple of calls on the same date in 2025 with slightly different reset spread. So is it right to assume that you'll address them differently depending on the way that the economic play out? So i.e., you could call one and extend another? .

So it's an interesting theoretical question, I guess. We'll look at that when we get closer to the time. But what we would be looking at is for -- in the round what that looks like is one consideration. But yes, what's -- the initial assessment will be done on an issue-by-issue basis.

Our next question comes from Lee Street from Citigroup.

Well done results. Two for me, please. Firstly, quite high level, but as you sit there today, when you take into account all factors, the operational, market, regulatory economics, what do you think there is the greatest risk to Deutsche Bank not hitting its 2024 and '25 financial objectives? .

And secondly, looking at the balance sheet from a Treasurer's perspective, what do you see is the least efficient part of the liability side of the Deutsche Bank balance sheet and what might you look to do about it? That would be my two questions.

It's James, maybe I'll take the first. Look, we have to execute, so we've laid out a plan. I think we're executing as we demonstrated in the first quarter well on that plan. But of course, that needs to continue.

Second, obviously, market developments, whether it's financial markets, the state of the economy, interest rates and all that will, of course, play a role. There's lots of things in our control. There are, of course, some things that aren't in our control. And there, we look at some of the nonfinancial risks carefully. And we also -- and that includes litigation risk and other things like cyber. But there, again, we do everything we can to manage to the best outcomes possible in the environment that we're faced with.

And then maybe I'll pick up the balance sheet question. So big picture, I think we've done a lot of good work over a number of years now to kind of get the balance sheet that we like given our business strategy and business mix and clients. So in that sense, I think we're in a pretty good shape. I think the issuance stack is as optimized as we can be given the constraints that we need to solve for.

Yes, I think there's always a question around can we be more efficient in the [class] mobilization side of things and where we can be -- increase our velocity of that kind of segment of our portfolio. But overall, I'm pretty happy with the quality of our funding mix.

The next question comes from Robert Smalley from UBS.

A couple of questions on loan loss provision and then one on capital. With respect to the loan loss provisions coming down in the second quarter and you're making provisions for real estate, could you give us a little bit of color on some of the renegotiations around real estate.

And real estate by nature being very lumpy, is most of this done in the first half of the year? Or is it spread out through the year and that might be some of the reason why the provision is going down?

Secondly, on the provision, how much of that is predicated, if anything, at all, on ECB cuts and refinancing there and a little relief for corporate clients? We are seeing certainly domestically IFO up 3 months in a row, German [PMI] is up. How much of that also plays into that, too?

And then on capital, just in general, you mentioned that 229 basis points MDA headroom and you like to keep that buffer around 200. Could you just give us a little sense of how you came up with the 200 number? And is that subject to change at any time?

Thanks, Robert. It's James. I'll start on both and Richard may want to add. So first of all, I mean, there's no specific cadence to the renegotiations or the extension events or refinancing events of -- in the CRE portfolio. They just come as they do approach their maturities.

We enter into negotiations with the sponsors as we approach those maturity or extension dates. In certain instances, their restructuring is needed, support, commitment on both the part of lenders and sponsors. And it's in those events, whatever the outcome of those events is, may affect our provisioning decisions.

They're lumpy in the sense that they're big exposures. But remember, the provisioning really will reflect what we believe the recovery is in each individual instance. So each event doesn't necessarily have to be a major CLP event in its own right.

As you said, we do see it on a gradual improving trajectory for a number of reasons, including better stability in terms of pricing recently. And as we've talked about pretty consistently, I'll call it, good behavior or a good partnership between sponsors and lenders that is persisting.

Lastly, your question was how much are we relying on -- for CLPs generally on stronger economic environment. Actually, the recent German data has improved beyond what we kind of thought and were aware of at March 31. So we're really committing without the benefit of more recent, more favorable data coming in.

And then quickly on the distance to MDA, there came a time when that appeared to be where the market was going, we had input from yourselves as credit investors and analysts from the rating agencies. And so we took it to be a good buffer to set. But as you probably heard me say in the past, the interesting thing that is, I would argue, creditor-friendly is lots of things are taking place in the calculation, making that calculation and consequently, the buffer, more and more conservative over time. And that's either the measurement of RWA as models change, some of the rules and methodologies that are changing. You're aware that we have a countercyclical buffer or plus for mortgage, a sectoral buffer. And lastly, on a relative basis, a high G-SIB surcharge that applies domestically much higher than our international.

So lots of things we think are -- support that buffer as appropriate. There's no consideration at the moment to moving that. But I wouldn't view it as forever in place. If there's changes around us, including in things like P2R or some of the MDA drivers, we might reevaluate, but for now, we're comfortable where we sit.

It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for your detailed answers and for doing the call.

(Operator Instructions) And our next question is from Alexei Lougovtsov from Bank of America.

My question is also about loan loss provisions. So you discussed your U.S. CRE exposure on Slide 22. And there, you have EUR 10 billion of modified, restructured or defaulted loans. Is it possible to get some breakdown on modified restructured and defaulted?

And also, you have a 4.8% coverage with CLP. So how do you expect this number will evolve? Would it be sufficient to have a 4.8% coverage for this portfolio?

And also when discussing on Slide 3, provisions, you mentioned that provisions should improve in H2 and you specifically mentioned that real estate should improve. You just discussed that your expectations based partially on better economy in Germany, but specifically to real estate, what indications do you see that the situation can get better?

So we don't break out the defaulted necessarily, but in fairness, the Stage 3 component of that -- of the total portfolio is, I think, a good indication.

But I do want to just say that -- just to clarify, the 4.8% represents the credit loss provisions that we've taken cumulatively against that EUR 10 billion of loan modifications that is also a cumulative number. So we're trying to help people understand sort of what the amount of credit loss provision is that's being produced by modifications over time, reflecting, as I answered earlier, the difference between at each event, the kind of the book value and what we estimate to be the realizable value.

As I said yesterday on the equity call, that modification balance will continue to rise as more loans get to maturity or extension dates. But based on our overall perspective that this will be -- we're in an improving trend, then I would expect that the percentage of new -- the percentage of new CLPs to the new balances that are modified will start to improve.

Yes, so that's the main driver. What is causing us to give you this kind of perspective of confidence that we're on an improving trend, it's mostly the valuations in the marketplace that we're seeing. So whether that's on sort of externally available information like indices that are public or what's going on in our own portfolio, so as we get sort of updated valuations, they've tended to firm, and in some cases, actually improve. So that's what we're seeing. But it is, of course, path dependent from here. I hope that helps.

Yes, and it helps a lot. And as a follow-up, difference between modifications and the restructuring, in which cases you require sponsors to put more equity. So any color on this would be helpful.

Yes. So the modification -- look, in the, call it, the worst case, when the sponsor doesn't believe there's value to the project, they will hand the property back to the lenders and then the lenders need to work out as real estate owned that project.

Typically, what happens in most of the cases, and I might say 90% of the cases, there would be concessions made on the lender's part, extensions, modifications, sometimes rate concessions, but typically, in return for equity injection on the part of the sponsors, meaning a pay down of a portion of the loan. And so that's the behavior that we've been seeing.

We've had pretty significant paydowns over the last sort of 6, 9 months. And that reflects, if you like, that sponsors still see value or see value in the projects, and therefore, lenders and sponsors work together to get those projects through this current cycle.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was our last question. And I would like to turn back to Philip Teuchner for closing comments.

Thank you, Francine. And just to finish up, thank you all for joining us today. You know where the IR team is. And if you have any further questions, we look forward to talking to you soon again. Have a good day. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you very much for joining. Have a pleasant day and a great weekend. Goodbye.