Frankfurt - German global banking giant Deutsche Bank is setting out its plans for the future after an onslaught of legal disputes led to major setbacks. Figures due out this Thursday are not expected to be very promising.
Things are not looking good for Germany's global banking giant Deutsche Bank: analysts expect more losses for the final quarter of 2014 owing to set-asides for legal risks in figures due out Thursday.
That would be the fourth quarterly loss for joint directors Juergen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, who took over the reins of the bank in June 2012.
Management plans to set out a more detailed strategy for the future in the second quarter of the year, but there is already speculation about the future of Postbank, a Deutsche Bank subsidiary. For now, there will be a teleconference with journalists where Fitschen and Jain will discuss preliminary results, with the annual press conference postponed until the business plan is ready.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jain stressed the importance of a universal business model, offering services to private clients and the capital markets. However, it is the universal model that is coming under the greatest scrutiny from regulators.
That new regulatory environment is causing some of Deutsche Bank's greatest headaches for Deutsche Bank. Additionally, the bank faces massive fines for the improper sale of mortgages and alleged rigging of the Libor bank-lending rate.
In the most recently published figures, the bank has so far set aside €3bn for legal risks, with more to come. The most recent quarterly report is expected to add €1.7bn to that. In order to deal with legal issues, the bank has appointed a new director to the management board, Christian Sewing, formerly the global head of group audit.
Analysts expect Deutsche Bank to report an overall profit of €1bn for 2014. In 2013, the bank described its €681m profit as "unsatisfactory."
For the first nine months of 2014, the bank reported revenues of €1.3bn, a drop of 40% on the previous year.