Deutsche Bank Trading Picked Up in August After Muted Start

(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG said trading accelerated again over the past weeks after a slow start to the quarter, one of the few large investment banks to give guidance after a strong first half of the year.

“July started off pretty muted for the markets in general,”  Mark Fedorcik, who heads the investment bank, said Tuesday at a virtual conference hosted by Barclays Plc. “We saw good pick up in activity in August and we’ve seen it now in the first two weeks of September.”

The lender is also seeing “robust activity” in parts of the financing unit and in the business of advising on deals and capital raisings, he said. Overall, revenue at the investment bank this year will be in line with last year’s 9.3 billion euros ($11 billion), Fedorcik said, confirming a previous guidance.

Headed by Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing, Deutsche Bank is approaching the final stretch of a four-year turnaround plan. Sewing has faced a number of cost headwinds but he has repeatedly reaffirmed his profitability target for next year, most recently after strong trading results in the second quarter that allowed him to raise the revenue outlook for 2022. 

Fedorcik also said at the conference he wants to continue to cut costs at the devision, though he’ll need to strike a balance between savings and growth. The combination of a clear strategy and stable management should allow the investment bank to become “boring” and predictable going forward, he said. 

“Of course there’ll be moments when you look at the perimeter a little bit and make some adjustments,” he said. But the goal is “really to become a boring, repeatable bank where we don’t have surprises, other than on the upside.”

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