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Deutsche Bank (DB) Mulls Selling Leasing Unit Amid Overhaul

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Continuing with its plans of focusing more on the profitable divisions, Deutsche Bank (DB - Free Report) is contemplating divesting its leasing unit, Postbank Leasing GmbH. The news was reported by Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private.

The bank has not yet made any final decision. In fact, it still has the option to reverse its decision and keep the unit. A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment.

Notably, under the leadership of CEO Christian Sewing, the bank is on track to achieve its overhaul plan of getting rid of the units that do not meet internal profitability benchmarks as an effort to revive overall profits.

In September 2019, Deutsche Bank auctioned portfolios of equity derivatives after dividing the same into three groups — European, Asian and U.S. books. Through this, the bank made progress in exiting its equities-trading business, with a view to counter rising costs and falling bottom line.

The European assets were acquired by Barclays Plc (BCS - Free Report) , whereas Goldman Sachs (GS - Free Report) placed the winning bid for Asia equity assets. Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) purchased the U.S. trades.

Further, in November 2019, Deutsche Bank came up with the sale of unwanted assets worth $50 billion to Goldman Sachs as part of an overhaul of the emerging-market debt holdings.

Also, recently, Deutsche Bank was planning to restructure its fixed-income trading products in an effort to recede costs without forgoing revenues from its biggest source of income.

Notably, the bank’s continued efforts to reduce costs have been bearing fruits. Adjusted costs (excluding litigation, impairments, policyholder benefits and claims, and restructuring and severance expenses) have declined, witnessing a compound annual growth rate of 7.8% over the last five years (ended 2020), with the trend continuing in the first quarter of 2021. In fact, Deutsche Bank targets to reduce adjusted costs to €16.7 billion by 2022-end.

Though management expects higher regulatory compliance costs in the upcoming quarters, it remains committed to counterbalancing the impact through cost-saving measures.

So far this year, shares of the company have gained 31.1% on the NYSE compared with the industry’s growth of 17.6%.






Currently, Deutsche Bank carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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