German lender Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Wednesday provided an update on its preliminary results for full-year 2012, and said that higher litigation provisions has reduced its pre-tax income and net income for the year. The increase in provision resulted from new developments regarding US mortgage-related suits. However, the board's proposal for a cash dividend of 0.75 euros per share remains unchanged.
According to the company, the update was based on new developments regarding specific existing legal matters that occurred after the disclosure of its preliminary, unaudited 2012 results on January 31, 2013.
The new developments require provisions relating to US mortgage-related litigation in some of the Bank's legacy businesses that are assigned to the Non-Core Operations Unit, and unrelated regulatory investigations.
As a result, the bank has increased its provision for litigation by 0.6 billion euros to 2.4 billion euros, thereby reducing its previously announced income before income taxes by 0.6 billion euros to 0.8 billion euros, as well as net income by 0.4 billion euros to 0.3 billion euros.
The company noted that some of the provisions relate to claims that were disclosed earlier as contingent liabilities. Consequently, the bank's contingent liabilities for significant legal and regulatory matters will decline by about 0.5 billion euros to 1.5 billion euros.
Due to the changes, Deutsche Bank´s Basel 2.5 Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio as of December 31, 2012, slid to 11.4 percent from 11.6 percent. Basel 3 pro-forma Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio will decrease to 7.8 percent from 8 percent.
However, the bank reaffirmed its target for the Basel 3 pro-forma Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 8.5 percent at March 31, 2013.
In January end, the company reported a sharp fall in full-year 2012 net income to 0.7 billion euros from 4.3 billion euros last year. Adjusted pre-tax profit was 4.9 billion euros.
On Frankfurt's Xetra, Deutsche Bank shares are currently trading at 32.74 euros, up 2.3 percent, on a volume of 2.03 million shares.
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