2023-11-14 14:52:41
Unlike many state banks, the savings bank fund company Deka apparently has no credit risks vis-à-vis René Benko’s shaky Signa real estate empire. Rather, Deka is on track to make billions in profit before taxes for the first time in 2023. After nine months, it had already exceeded the profit target for this year, which had only been increased in the summer. In addition, Deka has only had to spend 48.1 cents so far this year to generate one euro – a good efficiency value compared to the industry.
In the third quarter of 2023, Deka, which is Germany’s second-largest fund company with managed customer assets of 789 billion euros behind DWS (860 billion euros) and ahead of Allianz Global Investors (516 billion) and Union Investment (433 billion), showed continued profit momentum. The economic result rose from 634 million euros in the first half of the year to 997 million euros, almost exactly the same as at the end of September 2022. At that time, however, almost nothing was added in the fourth quarter. This year, Deka is reportedly expecting risk provisions in the fourth quarter to run into double-digit millions – also because of the weakness in the commercial real estate market. Unlike many Landesbanken and fund competitor Commerz Real, Deka is reportedly not affected by the Signa Group’s difficulties.
This is not only reflected in the inconspicuous provision for loans at risk of default, amounting to 7.3 million euros to date. Rather, on Tuesday the Deka board also increased the annual forecast for 2023 for pre-tax profit, which had reached a record value of 985 million euros in the previous year. After only expecting 500 million euros for 2023 in the spring and then 800 million euros in the summer, the Deka board has now increased the forecast to “10 to 20 percent above the previous year”, which means a profit of 1.1 to 1. would amount to 2 billion euros.
Certificates as drivers with side effects
Private customer business is a profit driver. After Deka sold funds and certificates for 14.5 billion euros in the first half of 2023, the momentum slowed somewhat, as only another 4.2 billion euros were added in the third quarter. Of this, 3.2 billion euros went to certificates that private customers currently like to use to protect themselves against the risk of rising and falling interest rates.
The fact that Deka sells more investment certificates than funds to private customers is not new: this was the case for the first time in 2018. For Deka, however, they have the disadvantage that, unlike funds, these often short-term certificates do not contribute to income on a long-term basis with portfolio commissions.
In order to keep the bearer bonds off the balance sheet, Deka has also been working with partners such as Helaba, Société Générale and Goldman Sachs in the certificates business for two years, which is reducing the profit margin. These cooperation partners currently account for a good half of certificate sales, it was said on Tuesday.
Daniel Mohr Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 31 Hanno Mußler Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 10 Hanno Mußler Published/Updated: Recommendations: 11
In nine months of 2023, certificate sales grew to 14.2 from 7.8 billion euros in the first nine months of 2022. As Deka also announced, its fund business with private customers developed rather weakly. Net sales fell to 4.6 billion euros from 7.3 billion euros previously. Stock funds made up the majority with 3.4 billion euros (4.9 billion euros). 1.4 billion euros (1.7 billion euros) flowed into real estate funds.
#record #year #Deka