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25 Jan 2021
Updating estimates ahead of 4Q reporting

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Updating estimates ahead of 4Q reporting
The bank has already guided to four major one-off items, causing large losses
Commerzbank has over the past few weeks announced that it will book a number of specific items in its 4Q PandL, including additional restructuring charges (EUR 610m), loan loss provisions (at least EUR 600m), goodwill impairment (at least EUR 1.5bn), and deferred tax asset write-downs (not quantified but we estimate around EUR 0.5bn). We include these in our numbers here.
Operating trends include NII pressure but robust fees and commissions and trading
In the underlying numbers, we expect some further net interest income pressure in the quarter, offset by strong fee and commission income and trading income. There will be a negative in other income from mBank''s additional mortgage-related charges. Costs are targeted slightly below last year''s levels, and we expect this to be achieved. We update numbers to reflect these points.
Capital ratio should remain above 13%, notwithstanding the PandL losses
The company has indicated that it expects to remain above 13% CET1 ratio (from 3Q 13.5%) despite the one-off charges. This is partly because the biggest item (goodwill impairment) has no impact on regulatory capital, since already deducted, but also because we expect the bank to manage down assets and RWAs into year-end as it did last year, boosting its ratios.
New CEO unveiling a strategy update
Commerzbank has been working on additional cost reductions over the past year (more digital, less branches), and is expected to provide more details of this and other business plan updates now that the new CEO is fully on board (since 1 January). The company has scheduled a 3-hour Capital Markets Day presentation in the afternoon of its results day (11 February).
We update estimates and raise our target price, but remain Neutral
We make slight increases to forward estimates to reflect a slight pull-forward of loan loss provisions with these 4Q charges. We do not yet make any...