FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Spurred on by the turnaround in interest rates, Commerzbank is taking big steps towards profit growth in 2023. In the first three months, the group earned 580 million euros on the bottom line, almost twice as much as a year earlier. For the full year, the Board of Managing Directors is aiming for a surplus "significantly above that of 2022," as the bank, which recently returned to the Dax, confirmed on Wednesday. On the stock market, however, the news was met with a slide in the share price.

The Commerzbank share lost around seven percent of its value in the morning, making it the biggest loser in the Dax. At the same time, it was only traded around four percent higher than at the turn of the year.

Analysts were positively surprised by the quarterly figures. However, the Board of Managing Directors still fell short of market expectations with its raised forecast for net interest income this year, said industry expert Amit Goel of the British bank Barclays.

Commerzbank's management, meanwhile, said its plans were confirmed. "We have started the year with a lot of momentum, seamlessly continuing the strong performance of the previous year," said Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors Manfred Knof. "We are fully on track to achieve our targets for 2023, including a payout ratio of 50 percent." Net income in the first quarter was around 100 million higher than analysts' average expectations.

After a net profit of 1.4 billion euros for the full year 2022, Knof had already held out the prospect of "significantly higher consolidated earnings" for the current year when the financial statements were presented in February. The 2022 profit could already have been considerably higher had it not been for more than one billion euros in charges from the Polish subsidiary mBank in connection with Swiss franc loans, among other things.

The problems at mBank made themselves felt again in the opening quarter of 2023 and could remain a burden on Commerzbank for the full year: 173 million additional provisions for legal risks in connection with Swiss franc loans were incurred in Poland. This also reduced Commerzbank's earnings: At just under 2.7 billion euros, its total income in the first quarter was 4.5 percent below the figure for the same period last year.

Commerzbank noticeably benefited from higher interest rates in the first three months of the current year. Net interest income increased by almost 39 percent year-on-year to around 1.95 billion euros. At the same time, risk provisioning for possible loan defaults in the first quarter of 68 million euros was significantly below the previous year's figure of 464 million euros.

For the full year, the Board of Management now expects net interest income to increase to around 7 billion euros - "with additional upside potential". Previously, it had targeted 6.5 billion. However, analysts were already expecting an average of just under 7.4 billion euros.

Commerzbank expects additional tailwind from its return to the top German stock market league: Since February 27, the Commerzbank share has again been listed in the German share index.

Better times are expected to dawn again for the bank's shareholders: The Annual General Meeting on May 31 will vote on the distribution of a dividend of 20 cents per share. The Board of Management wants this to be just the start of the third profit distribution by the partially nationalized bank since it was rescued with billions in taxpayers' money during the financial crisis of 2008/2009.

"Our scope for distributing capital to our shareholders continues to increase," confirmed CFO Bettina Orlopp. According to the bank, an initial share buyback program with a volume of 122 million euros has now been approved by the regulatory authorities. Commerzbank will thus distribute a total of 30 percent of last year's consolidated profit to shareholders./ben/stw/DP/tih