Has Deutsche Bank turned the corner?

WHEN IN APRIL 2018 Christian Sewing took over as chief executive of Deutsche Bank few thought he would last very long. The bank, one of Europe’s biggest by assets, had been through four chief executives in six years, and its very survival was at stake. It was unable to make enough profits to generate anything resembling a decent return for investors, and seemed to be frequently ensnared in costly litigation. There was talk of the bank being taken over, and even wound down.Mr Sewing is, impressively, still in his job—and his contract was extended last year, to 2026. On January 27th he presented the bank’s annual results for 2021 at Deutsche’s headquarters in Frankfurt. They seemed to confirm that the lender has stabilised at last. Mr Sewing reported a pre-tax profit of €3.4bn ($3.8bn) and a net profit of €2.5bn for 2021. In the final three months of the year it made a net profit of €315m, a year-on-year increase of 67%, beating analysts’ expectations. Across 2021 as a whole “we delivered our best result in ten years”, said Mr Sewing. Shareholders seem to agree. Since its record low in March 2020, Deutsche’s share price has almost doubled.