Deutsche Bank AG earned 1.8 billion euros (US$2.4 billion) in the first quarter of the year, a gain over last year amid improving results from the selling of debt and equities, the bank said yesterday.
That compared with a net profit of 1.2 billion euros in the first quarter of last year.
The bank, based in Frankfurt and Germany’s biggest lender, said its net revenues rose 24 percent to 9 billion euros in the January-March period compared with 7.2 billion euros last year.
Despite the gain, the bank said the results reflected 241 million euros in write-downs, but added that the year-ago figure also included write-downs of 1 billion euros and a charge of 500 million euros.
Still, Deutsche Bank said record pretax profit at its corporate and investment bank unit along with improved revenues from selling and trading debt and equities, lifted its first-quarter results higher.
“The economic environment clearly stabilized in the first quarter 2010, but is not without some remaining vulnerability,” chief executive Josef Ackermann said in a statement.
Separately, Britain’s partly nationalized Lloyds Banking Group said yesterday that it turned a profit in the first quarter as the rate of impairments on bad loans slowed.
In a trading update, Lloyds said such provisions were lower in both its retail and wholesale divisions.
Lloyds, created from the merger of Lloyds TSB and Halifax/Bank of Scotland, said it was also making good progress on integration savings, and expects to achieve £2 billion (US$3.1 billion) worth of synergies and other savings by the end of next year.
The government has a 41 percent stake in the bailed-out firm.
Customer deposits rose by £5 billion in the first quarter, while lending balances were little changed, the company said.
“Impairments have slowed significantly in the first few months of the year giving us confidence that we will achieve a better financial performance than previously guided,” CEO Eric Daniels said.
“I am pleased to report that we returned to profitability in the first quarter and expect this momentum to be sustained throughout 2010,” Daniels said.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
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