Deutsche Bank still in the red with second annual net loss

Embattled Deutsche Bank reported on Thursday the large loss of €1.9 billion in just the last quarter of 2016.

This contributed to its net loss of €1.4 billion for the year. This comes on top of the €6.8 billion loss it posted in 2015.

The German lending giant has been troubled by a number of problems, including a massive settlement with the US government over its toxic mortgage assets.

The news forced down the price of shares in the bank which had already been weakened by fears over the bank’s ability to cover its mounting legal costs.

Deutsche Bank agreed a $7.2 billion agreement in fines and compensation in the US over its involvement in mortgage-backed security schemes which helped prompt the global financial meltdown in 2008.

The agreed sum was the largest payout that any financial institution has so far paid for misconduct related to the crash, but still significantly lower than the $14 billion initially demanded by the US Justice Department.

But the bank is not yet out of the woods.  On Tuesday, authorities in New York and in London handed out another penalty of nearly $630 million over alleged money laundering in Russia.

Amidst a landscape of fines, restructuring expenses, low interest rates and lower interest rates, the bank last month cut bonus payments for some 25% of its employees.

CEO John Cryan said last year’s results “were heavily impacted by decisive management action taken to improve and modernise the bank, as well as by market turbulence".

Since his appointment in 2015, Cryan has been trying to restructure the bank to make it more profitable and to settle the legal cases against Deutsche.  Describing 2016 as “particularly tough”, he said that the bank was aiming to return to profit in 2017.

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