Results of Deutsche Bank’s 2024 Performance: A Message from Christian Sewing
Dear Colleagues,
Five and a half years ago, we set out to create a bank that is robust, resilient, and sustainably profitable—one with a clear strategy that delivers exceptional results for its clients. Since then, we’ve made significant strides together, and you have all worked hard to ensure that our progress continues. Despite the challenges we’ve faced, we’ve fundamentally transformed Deutsche Bank, achieving substantial milestones even in difficult times. We have surpassed interim goals and outperformed expectations, delivering results stronger than initially planned.
In 2024, we made remarkable progress once again, even in the face of considerable and sometimes unexpected challenges. This year, we’ve demonstrated the operational strength of our bank. Our revenues reached €30.1 billion, the highest since 2015, marking the fifth consecutive year of growth. This achievement is a direct result of our continued momentum across all four businesses. We have deepened our relationships with clients, secured prestigious new mandates, and expanded our market share, outperforming many of our global competitors in key areas. The positive results from our investments in recent years are already yielding substantial returns.
We also improved our profit before tax to €7.9 billion, excluding non-operating costs related to legacy issues. Including these costs, profit before tax stood at €5.3 billion, 7% lower than the previous year, largely due to increased restructuring expenses and nearly €2 billion in non-recurring legal costs, including for the Postbank acquisition proceedings from 2010. However, we have now put these legacy issues behind us, significantly reducing future risks for the bank. At the same time, we’ve continued to make targeted investments in future growth, technology, efficiency, and strengthening our controls.
As a result, 2024 has been a transitional year, laying the foundation for us to take the next big step together from a position of strength. We’ve always said that 2025 will be a pivotal year for Deutsche Bank. At the end of this year, we will be judged on the success of our transformation and growth strategy. The key measure will be our post-tax return on tangible equity (RoTE), and we are confident we will meet our target of over 10% RoTE as planned. The strong start to 2025 reinforces our optimism in achieving these results.
In terms of operational efficiency, we are on track to achieve our target of €2.5 billion in cost savings. While we continue to invest in future growth, we expect our adjusted costs to remain essentially flat year-on-year. We now forecast ending the year with a cost-to-income ratio below 65%, slightly above our original target of below 62.5%. However, this does not mean we can become complacent. Cost discipline remains a top priority, and we will continue to focus on delivering the best results across all areas of the bank.
In addition to a RoTE exceeding 10%, we have committed to increasing our distributions to investors. Today, we announced that we aim to raise the dividend by 50% this year and initiate a share buyback program worth up to €750 million, reflecting our strong financial results and continued confidence in the future.
But 2025 is not just the year we need to prove ourselves; it’s also the year in which we aim to lay the groundwork for our long-term vision of becoming the European Champion. We have all the necessary ingredients to achieve this. We know who we are, where we want to go, and how to get there. As the Global Hausbank, we have the right model to support our clients, especially through challenging times. Moreover, we have a world-class team with unique expertise, working tirelessly to ensure the lasting success and financial security of our clients both at home and abroad.
What we make of these strengths is in our hands. I am confident that we can continue to add many more chapters to our success story, this year and beyond, delivering impressive results. However, for this to happen, we must remain committed to continuous development. I see three key areas where we can further elevate our results:
- Embed our purpose and culture: With the successful launch of our “This is Deutsche Bank” framework in 2024, we can now embed it more deeply into our bank, ensuring all our actions align with our purpose and culture. All of us on the Management Board are committed to leading this effort in collaboration with our managers across the bank.
- Optimize processes and decision-making: By streamlining processes and decision-making, we can improve efficiency while enhancing the client experience. Technologies such as AI and automation can play an important role in this, especially as we accelerate their adoption. Additionally, the transformation we’ve undergone in recent years means we’re now better positioned to delegate more responsibility to individual business units, further enhancing our efficiency and achieving better results.
- Targeted capital allocation: We can be more focused in how we deploy capital, ensuring we allocate it to areas that generate the greatest value. This will also mean being more decisive in exiting areas where we do not earn our cost of capital, ensuring our results continue to reflect the best use of our resources.
The Management Board and I are committed to seizing these opportunities and are working closely to find ways to maximize our potential by adapting structures, delegating decisions, and eliminating obstacles to your work. We want to empower everyone at Deutsche Bank to excel together, every day, for our clients, investors, and all stakeholders.
If you’d like more details on our results, you can join our Annual Media Conference live on db.com at 9 a.m. CET.
I look forward to working with all of you to make 2025 another great year for Deutsche Bank. On behalf of the entire Management Board, I want to thank you for everything you’ve contributed to our success in 2024.
Best wishes,
Christian
