Banking

Bloomberg Commerzbank AG vowed to restore revenue growth after posting its weakest fourth quarter in four years as competition for corporate clients weighs on Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke’s turnaround plan. Revenue for the group declined 3.3 percent to 2.04 billion euros, the Frankfurt-based lender said. “Commerzbank will concentrate on further growth in the core segments, and is targeting higher ...

Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) plans to award shareholders a special dividend as the British lender seeks to assuage concerns with the UK’s departure from the European Union looming. The bank, which required one of the costliest bailouts in financial history, swung to a better-than-expected profit before tax of 572 million pounds ($733 million) in the fourth ...

Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA’s trading revenue plunged in the fourth quarter, extending a tough quarter for French investment banking after volatile markets at the end of the year kept clients on the sidelines. Capital-markets and investment-banking revenue declined 29 percent in the last three months of 2018, led by fixed income. However, the lender’s earnings are less dependent on investment ...

Bloomberg It was supposed to be China’s answer to JPMorgan Chase & Co. But less than five years after China Minsheng Investment Group Corp. (CMIG) outlined plans to become a financial colossus, the company has instead turned into a symbol of the turmoil sweeping China’s once-vaunted private sector. After shocking investors with a missed bond payment last month, CMIG has ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG aims to rebuild in the Middle East after years of cost cutting and has hired executives to help win debt and advisory deals. “We have pivoted from a pure cost-control focus in 2018 to a controlled, disciplined growth phase in 2019,” Jamal Al Kishi, chief executive officer of the Middle East and Africa for the Frankfurt-based ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank pushed out its forecast for an interest-rate increase to early 2021, disappointing investors looking for signs of a policy easing later this year and sending the currency surging. Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr left the official cash rate at 1.75 percent on Wednesday in Wellington and said he expects to keep it there “through 2019 ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s central bank committed to a plan to raise interest rates this year and dropped a mandate that had allowed policy makers to intervene rapidly in the currency market to help drive inflation higher. The krona gained on the news, after many in the market had expected the Stockholm-based Riksbank to signal a more cautious stance. The bank left ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) reduced purchases of bonds for the first time in two months, stepping in to arrest a decline in yields amid a global debt rally spurred by rising risks to growth worldwide. The central bank offered to buy 180 billion yen ($1.6 billion) of securities maturing in 10-to-25 years at regular operation, versus 200 billion ...

Bloomberg ABN Amro Group NV missed fourth quarter profit estimates on increased anti-money laundering costs and an anticipated dividend increase failed to materialise. The Dutch lender kept its dividend at 1.45 euros for 2018, the same as the year before, missing analyst estimates of 1.54 euros. Fourth quarter net income was 316 million euros, this result includes 85 million euros ...

Bloomberg Banco Santander SA reminded investors that juicy bonds can come with nasty surprises. The Spanish lender rattled the bank Additional Tier 1 market by saying it will skip an option to call 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) of perpetual contingent-convertible notes next month, sending the bonds tumbling. The announcement came right at the deadline for a decision, after the ...