Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (DBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear shareholders, it feels a lot longer than a year ago that we conducted our last Annual General Meeting. So much has happened, and our world looks so different compared to 12 months ago. One of the many tangible differences is that our Annual General Meeting is being held at the planned date this year but only as a virtual meeting. As numerous other tax companies, we are using the opportunity created by the legislator in order to be able to inform you about the development of the bank in a timely manner while avoiding the health risks and public restrictions for face-to-face AGM and without having to wait until the autumn. Nevertheless, even in this format, we want to provide you, our shareholders, with the opportunity to engage in active dialogue with us. We, therefore, published our speeches on the Internet as early as 1 week ago to enable you to respond to our comments, and very many of you took advantage of the opportunity to send us your comments and questions for our virtual AGM. While we are lacking the personal interaction at Frankfurt Festhalle, there is at least a digital dialogue. Hopefully, this will provide you with a good overview of the current status of your Deutsche Bank. However, let me, first of all, turn to a number of formalities I, unfortunately, cannot spare you even at a virtual AGM. I hereby open today's ordinary Annual General Meeting of Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft. The general meeting was convened in proper form and in due time with the publication of the agenda in the Federal Gazette of 9th of April 2020. The extension of the agenda was published in the Federal Gazette of 22nd of April 2020. Today, physically present are our CFO, James von Moltke; our CEO, Christian Sewing; and our Deputy CEO, Karl von Rohr. The Supervisory Board is represented by myself as well as Professor Winkeljohann, who is also present here at Frankfurt. The shareholder representatives have elected him as a substitute to stand in for me in the event or should be unable to chair the AGM. The other Management Board and Supervisory Board members are unable to personally be present here today given the coronavirus-induced travel restrictions and social distancing requirements. However, to the extent possible, they will dial in to the webcast. I would therefore like to extend a warm welcome to them, too. The notary, Dr. [ Habita ], is sitting on the far left in our row from your perspective. He will be taking notarized minutes of today's AGM. Let me now make a few comments on the list of participants. As you know, participation in this year's AGM is only possible through proxies of the company, who are present in the attendance area here today. 9,400 shareholders have used this opportunity. Another 19,500 shareholders have cast their votes by absentee voting. These votes will be separately included in the results of the vote. The list of participants is currently being drawn up. As usual, I will announce the attendance once the list has been completed. Shareholders who have registered in due time will be able to change their instructions or absentee voting instructions until shortly after today's answers to the questions through the shareholders' portal. To that end, they must have registered in the portal. 9,300 shareholders have already done so. We are delighted about your strong interest. Here, [indiscernible] 12, the attendance area covers the so-called forum, including the adjacent rooms, where the votes will be counted later on. A copy of the agenda with the wording of the proposed resolutions is on display here. The notary has also received a copy. This also applies to the extension of the agenda submitted by shareholder Riebeck-Brauerei von 1862 Aktiengesellschaft. I will come back to the proposed resolutions submitted by that shareholder later on. We would also like to invite you to take part in the shareholder survey to give us feedback on your impressions here at the virtual AGM. This will also be conducted online this year. You will find the link on the website to the AGM in the Public section. This concludes the formalities. Ladies and gentlemen, we think that this virtual AGM is the best solution at a time when nearly nothing is normal in the economy or society. People of my generation have never before encountered anything like this crisis, not in all their working lives. The Asia and Russia crises, the collapse of the dot-com bubble, even the financial crisis of 12 years ago pale into insignificance compared to what has just begun and what we probably have to steel ourselves for. Just how great these challenges are is illustrated by one simple diagram that our economists have prepared. It shows the scale of monetary policy intervention by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank relative to GDP. Here, you can see how the current measures dwarf even those enormous interventions of 2008. We do not know how far-reaching the economic, political and social changes will turn out to be, but it doesn't take a prophet to see some clear trends: the conflict between the U.S. and China will intensify, the global division of labor will be reduced, the importance of the state and its influence will become greater, the digitalization of society will pick up pace, social media will become even more influential in shaping the way people think, personal values would come even more to the forefront and ecological factors will have a stronger influence on business decisions and consumer behavior. Hopes have largely receded that a steep economic collapse will be followed by rapid recovery to pre-crisis levels and that everything will get back to just how it was before. The coronavirus crisis will not only last longer than originally expected, it will also have lasting consequences for every individual because we will maybe travel less, attend fewer events and probably socialize less; for companies because they need supply chains that are less vulnerable to crises, new markets to operate in and digitally optimized business processes; for our economic system because the influence of the state will be quite different if the economy needs to be propped up by the public purse over many quarters; and for policymaking given that it's not only about stabilizing the situation as far as possible over the short term but also dealing with the consequences, and in particular, the rapid rise in public debt. And there will be the additional responsibility that comes with the growing influence of politics on the economy. Given these enormous challenges, the top priority for us at Deutsche Bank is to provide a stable and reliable contribution so that our economy and society as a whole can overcome this situation. In the last major crisis 12 years ago, banks were the problem. This time, we can and want to be part of the solution. Over recent months, we have shown in a very special way that Germany and Europe need a Deutsche Bank, a globally connected Deutsche Bank that gives powerful support to our export-oriented firms. Our Chief Executive Officer, Christian Sewing, will tell you about what we have been doing and will continue to do for our clients. Being able to help our clients the way we do is made possible by the very solid foundations on where we stand. For this, we can thank firstly the fact that we have slimmed our balance sheet by almost EUR 1 trillion, yes, EUR 1 trillion, in the past 8 years and reduced risks accordingly. The second factor has been the new strategy that our Management Board unveiled in July 2019. The transformation was the right move and indeed an important move for Deutsche Bank. This strategy is the basis for making our bank sustainably profitable and placing it in a position from which our shareholders will be able to benefit from a sustainable growth strategy. The fact that Deutsche Bank can focus on its strength is enormously advantageous during this phase. This is also shown by the pleasing result in the first quarter. On behalf of all the members of the Supervisory Board, I would like to thank the Management Board under the leadership of Christian Sewing and all our employees for this remarkable performance. We are proud of what they have accomplished together. Ladies and gentlemen, people are what make institutions strong. All institutions are characterized by people, but institutions are more than just the individuals who work there. History has shown this time and again, and that of Deutsche Bank is no exception. As we celebrate 150 years of Deutsche Bank this year, we look back on 150 years of upheavals: the founding years, the demise of Wilhelmine Germany, hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, the global economic crisis, National Socialism, the breakup of the bank after the Second World War, German reunification, the introduction of the euro; the financial crisis. All these were challenges throughout our history, some of which were a threat to our very existence. It is one of our bank's, your bank's hallmarks that it has overcome these challenges, often emerging even stronger than before. The bank's foundation back in 1870 as a modest start-up, as you would call it today, in Berlin was, to some extent, a response to a challenge. Entrepreneurs and industrialists in Germany no longer wanted to be as reliant on foreign banks. Globalization was in its infancy, and foreign trade had become an all-too-important part of the German economy. In the first decades of its foundation, our bank, therefore, consistently built its international business, an era that historians have impressively portrayed in the book we recently published to mark our anniversary. Our new strategy builds on precisely these roots. Deutsche Bank's vision 150 years ago was to be a global Hausbank for its domestic economy, and that is exactly what the focus is again on today. The Corporate Bank now plays a central role in our strategy, something Christian Sewing alludes to in his speech. I know that there are many people who still have their doubts stemming from the most recent chapters in our eventful history. I myself am much more optimistic. Just as we saw many times previously during the past 150 years, we are now seeing once again just how much power and discipline our bank has, and that's at a time when companies typically survive for less than 10 years on average. Time and again, our employees and managers have successfully built on the accomplishments of those who came before them and, where necessary, learned from the mistakes they made and remedied them. The same can be said for our generation that is now at the helm of our bank. Shareholders, the Supervisory Board closely followed last year's strategy process and its implementation, providing constructive advice and feedback. One of our points of focus was to make further improvements to the bank's risk management systems and internal controls. Deutsche Bank made considerable progress in both these areas. In 2019, Deutsche Bank invested around EUR 600 million in protecting the bank against nonfinancial risks. That's 3x the amount we invested back in 2013. You can read more about that in our annual report. And please be assured, these are topics we will rigorously pursue. We're certainly not letting up now. At the same time, we will continue to advice and support the Management Board, helping it to continue to reduce costs, to resolutely drive digitalization within the bank and to grasp growth opportunities. And it is these priorities that have influenced a number of changes in our Management Board and among the bank's senior group directors since our last Annual General Meeting. Fabrizio Campelli, previously Head of our Wealth Management division, is driving our bank's reorganization as our Chief Transformation Officer. With Michel Ilgner (sic) [ Michael Ilgner ], we have had a new Senior Group Director and Head of Human Resources since March of this year, who came to us from Deutsche Sporthilfe. With his varied experience, he's already giving a fresh impulse to change. We have a proven IT expert and experienced manager in Bernd Leukert. The former long-standing Board Member at SAP will continue to accelerate digitalization in numerous business processes here at Deutsche Bank. Our new CEO, Americas, Christiana Riley, has established a new management culture in New York since July of last year. Stefan Simon's focus is on legal and governance issues. And we have pooled compliance and nonfinancial risk issues under our Chief Risk Officer, Stuart Lewis. And in Alexander von zur Mühlen, we have found an in-house candidate to succeed our CEO APAC Werner Steinmüller, who will start his well-deserved retirement at the end of July after almost 30 years at Deutsche Bank. We would like to thank Werner for his hard work and dedication. He has made his mark on important areas of our bank, above all in the global transaction bank and, naturally, over the past 3 years, our Asian business. My thanks also go to Sylvie Matherat, Garth Ritchie and Frank Strauß, all of whom left the Management Board last year. Garth Ritchie and Frank Strauß both spent more than 2 decades at Deutsche Bank, helping to continually expand our business. For the former, it was in the international capital markets business; for the latter, our private client business in Germany. Sylvie Matherat, on the other hand, brought an outside perspective to the table. She joined Deutsche Bank in 2014, having previously worked as a financial supervisor. We have taken the new strategy as an opportunity to realign our leadership structure and establish an extra level beneath the Management Board called the Group Management Committee. The GMC is largely made up of business heads, which allows them to make business decisions and focus on our clients while staying close to the highest management ranks. This structure allows for faster decision-making and a clear focus on execution, and it has already paid off. The new Supervisory Board candidates are ideal additions as they also stand for Deutsche Bank of tomorrow. As you know, a Supervisory Board must be composed in such a way that its members as a whole possess the required knowledge, ability and expert experience. Like any management body, a Supervisory Board, however, should be composed of diverse individuals. This being the case, I'm delighted to be able to propose that former German Federal Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, be elected to the Supervisory Board. Sigmar Gabriel, who was appointed by way of court order in March 2020 as a new member of the Supervisory Board, was an active top-ranking politician for decades. His knowledge and his global experience are already helping our bank. His experience in the field of sustainability is also valuable to us. By recommending Dagmar Valcárel for election, she was appointed a member of the Supervisory Board by way of court order in August 2019, we are proposing a legal expert with extensive experience. She has held numerous positions in the financial industry during her 24-year career in Germany, the U.K., Spain, Greece, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Her previous engagements include several senior leadership positions at Barclays. From the start, she has been chairing our Integrity Committee. Our third candidate for election to the Supervisory Board is Theodor Weimer. He has worked in the financial industry for 3 decades and has a lot of experience in the capital markets business, in corporate banking and in retail banking. In the years between 2009 and 2017, he was HypoVereinsbank's CEO, and he's currently CEO of Deutsche Börse Group. Theodor Weimer is one of Germany's most respected managers. All 3 candidates are personally presenting themselves in short videos, which you may retrieve on our website. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a vote of confidence for us to see such high-ranking individuals in politics and finance assuming a Supervisory Board mandate at our bank. After all, it is a demanding and time-consuming job. It is a position of responsibility. In the last financial year, the Supervisory Board and its committees met a total of 56 times. We are also bidding farewell to 2 deserving members of our Supervisory Board. We would like to thank Katherine Garrett-Cox sincerely for her contribution over the past 9 years. She will be leaving the Supervisory Board in order to focus on other professional commitments. We also thank Richard Meddings, who expertly led our Audit Committee for several years and left the Supervisory Board last summer. The years of transition and change were difficult ones and required an extremely high level of personal commitment from them both. We send them our heartfelt thanks. I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my deepest sympathy also on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board to Jürg Zeltner's family. Jürg Zeltner was only a member of the Supervisory Board for a few months. And after leaving it, he died much too early in March this year after a severe illness. At this point, I would like to commemorate the deceased employees and pensioners of Deutsche Bank, even if we're only together virtually here today. In the past financial year, 71 of our active staff members and 607 Deutsche Bank pensioners passed away. We will honor their memory. Thank you. Dear shareholders, as Microsoft's Founder, Bill Gates, once said, and his words have been repeated many times, "Banking is necessary, banks are not." I think he's wrong, and the coronavirus crisis is, I think, powerful testimony to this. There has to be an institution behind a function. This is especially true in a digital world, where trust in a brand is increasingly important. And this is also especially true when it comes to questions of finance. When our clients come to us, they want advance. And like a doctor, we have to ask quite personal questions. It is especially true at times of crises when people first turn to other people and established companies for help and support. It is quite clear that in times of crises and upheaval, there is no algorithm that can replace the relationship that a client has with their go-to Hausbank. And to refer to medicine again, it is like us still preferring to go and see a doctor despite the advent of telemedicine being around. In the future, what will be most important is achieving the right combination of institution, function and people, the right combination of a trusting relationship and good customer service. Over the past few years, we have often heard people discussing whether it is important that Germany and Europe have international banks based here. This is no longer a matter of debate now that boundaries are coming back around the world, first as a reaction to the trade conflict and now during the coronavirus crisis. The past few months are clearly proof that when times get tough, today's economic policies are, first and foremost, national, ideally European but certainly not global. Personally, I find this regrettable, but it is unfortunately the reality we live in. The Europe of the future will want to have more control over crucial supply chains, over health care and indeed even over food production and farming. But that also means that Europe will have to have a certain amount of control over what are essential financial services. And right now, there is a need for internationally orientated banks that serve as bridges between the major economic areas. Your Deutsche Bank has a unique global infrastructure that sets us apart from all other German and European banks. This makes us strategically a crucial partner for almost every company with international operations. Just like 150 years ago, the upheaval we are seeing today presents Deutsche Bank with the opportunity to be a global Hausbank for its clients to strengthen its relationship with them and to continue to write its story of success that dates back so many years. Thank you for helping us do so, and stay healthy. I now pass the floor to our CEO, Christian Sewing.

Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, it would have been my pleasure to stand before you again this year in the Frankfurt Festhalle. Back in February when I first started thinking about our meeting scheduled for May 20 in greater detail, I started to be full of happy anticipation. It was something to look forward to. Compared to my first 2 general meetings as CEO, the circumstances seemed to me to be different: our share price had just surpassed the EUR 10 mark, the ranks of our shareholders had just been augmented by another long-term investor and the spreads on our credit default swaps had tightened significantly. And we had a very good start to the year in January and February. Behind us lay not only an eventful financial year, but one that will hopefully go down in the history of our bank as a turning point one day, a turning point for the better, a year in which we refocused our bank according to its traditional strength, a year in which we rigorously initiated our new strategy, a year in which we built credibility and trust. However, instead of explaining all of this to you in person at the Frankfurt Festhalle, I'm talking to you in this rather different format today. Our first virtual AGM is one small example of how radically the coronavirus has altered our lives in such a short space of time. The crisis poses challenges for many people, families and also business around the world, some of them often existential nature. At times like this, it is a special privilege to be healthy and, let me also say this, to live in a country that is as safe and well-run as Germany and to have our company head office here. The coronavirus crisis is one of those events which one can imagine in theory but which cannot be solved using the usual approaches. And scientists may have issued warnings about a pandemic like this, but actually, who would have reckoned with this kind of drastic economic consequences that we now have to expect for this year? Economic output in Europe and the United States will probably contract more sharply than during the financial crisis 12 years ago. Unemployment rates are already climbing significantly, both in the U.S. and in Europe, and are expected to be in the double digits on average in 2020. Some companies are revising their sales forecasts down drastically now that production has been close to 0 for weeks on end in some industrial sectors. At present, no one can predict how fast the economy will pick up again as the lockdown and other restrictions are being eased. Many firms are expecting a recovery in the second half of the year. However, ladies and gentlemen, the world economy is currently far away from returning to normal operations as we knew it before the pandemic. This also means that the markets will remain volatile. The recovery from the end of March is noticeable but not necessarily sustainable. There are still too many uncertainties. Now governments and central banks on both sides of the Atlantic have done virtually everything they can to take the sting out of this crisis. This will undoubtedly have side effects, no doubt about this, for example in the shape of much higher sovereign debt or maybe high inflation in the long run. But I dare not imagine the kind of economic collapse we might have faced if policymakers and central bankers had not intervened so quickly. Ladies and gentlemen, for us as a bank, our actions during this phase have been guided by 2 principles and will continue to do so. We do all we can to protect our staff, and we are there for our clients and our economy, and even more so than usual. This requires a stable foundation, and this is what we have. We are now benefiting from having spent the past few years resolutely transforming our bank and thereby making it even more resilient. This transformation has not yet been completed, mind you, but we are making very good progress. This is true of our organizational structure, our business model, our returns in the Core Bank and the way we work together. That is precisely why your Deutsche Bank, despite all the challenges, is currently stronger than it has been for many years. It's a Deutsche Bank that is more trusted by its clients and more listened to by politicians, a Deutsche Bank with a deep understanding of the economy and society in the midst of which we want to be. It's a Deutsche Bank with the absolute resolve to assume responsibility and to make a positive impact. So let us recap on the decisions we took last year and how much progress we've already made. Ladies and gentlemen, actually, the bank's transformation did not begin in July 2019 but in April 2018. At that time, shortly before my appointment as CEO, I had been discussing with our Supervisory Board Chairman, Paul Achleitner, some initial ideas that would later form the basis for our strategy. We spoke about bringing to bear Deutsche Bank's strengths once more, with a special focus on our global corporate clients. But back then, it was too early to implement such a strategy. First, we had to establish the foundations. We had to stabilize the bank further by ensuring it had an excellent capital and liquidity base, lower balance sheet risks, better controls and lower costs. Clear short-term targets needed to be set and achieved in order to bolster the trust of the financial markets and regulators in our bank. When we met in the Frankfurt Festhalle a year ago, we had already achieved a number of things, actually. Trust in our bank had risen after we met all our targets in 2018. And we had just examined a combination with Commerzbank and dismissed the idea because we found our own plan so convincing, a decision we felt confident about 1 year later because this was the only way for us to be able to focus on our strengths. At the Annual General Meeting last year, I couldn't give you the details yet what exactly the new Deutsche Bank would look like. Although we had been working intensively on our concept since December 2018, we still needed to clarify several details, figures and regulatory approvals before taking a decision. However, ladies and gentlemen, there was one thing we had already agreed on: It was time for the second stage, meaning a profound transformation of Deutsche Bank. In July 2019, we therefore announced 5 key decisions. First, we wanted to exit business activities in areas where we were not among the leaders. In the Investment Bank especially, we wanted to focus on those areas where we are strong. Second, we created 4 businesses that are completely aligned to the needs of our clients, including our own Corporate Bank. In all of these 4 businesses, we have market-leading positions and ambitious growth targets. Third, we set ourselves even more ambitious cost targets, both for 2019 and the period until 2022. Unfortunately, this also means we have to make large-scale job cuts, which is painful. Fourth, we want to continue to invest in technology and controls. And with regard to environment and social matters, we want to become a better bank. And fifth, we want to manage our balance sheet as best as possible so that we can finance this transformation without a capital increase before then being able to start paying dividends again to our shareholders. Unfortunately, this also means that we will not be proposing a dividend payment this year or next year. When we presented this plan in July last year, it was clear to us from the beginning that regardless of how good the plan is, the key is how rigorously and consistently we implement it. And if -- ladies and gentlemen, we started to implement on the very day it was announced. Now we can say not only is the plan working, but it's working better than we originally expected. Our full year results for 2019 already confirm this. As planned, we reduced our adjusted costs to EUR 21.5 billion, and we comfortably achieved or even surpassed our capital target and our leverage ratio for 2019. Now a key factor in this has been the successful efforts of our so-called Capital Release Unit, the Capital Release Unit which reduced risks faster than we expected. Of course, radical transformation of our bank initially weighed on our results. Our net loss of EUR 5.3 billion for the financial year 2019 is a reflection of this. However, what's important is that our 2019 results already account for 70% of the expected transformation-related costs that we announced for the period through to 2022. At the same time, ladies and gentlemen, those activities that we want to continue are performing very well. Despite the transformation and even tougher interest rate environment, we not only kept revenues in our so-called Core Bank, excluding specific items, in 2019, we actually managed to grow them slightly year-on-year. And because we achieved disciplined cost-cutting at the same time, the picture for results looks even more encouraging. The adjusted pretax profit for the Core Bank grew by 7% in 2019 to EUR 2.8 billion. In several businesses and business areas, we won market share, and our asset manager, DWS, recorded net new inflows of EUR 25 billion. We also continued to improve our internal controls and processes. Doing so meant that we passed both parts of the U.S. Federal Reserve 2019 stress test, CCAR, for the first time. But are we there yet regarding our controls? The answer is no. We must continue to improve here and to invest in our processes in close dialogue with our regulators. And our focus will be no less rigorous here than it is in implementing the rest of our strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, these far-reaching decisions and the resolute implementation were only possible because the leadership team of our bank is pulling in one direction. When I say leadership team, I mean the Management Board as well as our new Group Management Committee. And at such a time, close relationship of trust with the Supervisory Board is particularly important. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Supervisory Board and especially our Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Achleitner, for your support and your backing, especially whenever particularly critical decisions had to be taken. The progress we've been making has shown that we're on the right track. And it's not just us who are convinced we have the right strategy. The feedback from our clients, regulators but also from you, our shareholders, has also been positive. The regulatory authorities, for instance, reduced our capital requirement, and that was even before the coronavirus pandemic broke out because, thanks to the progress we've made with our transformation, our bank is more robust now. And the capital markets, too -- on the capital markets, too, we've done relatively well, and I emphasize the word relatively. At the time of our Annual General Meeting in 2019, our share price was at EUR 6.46. By February of this year, it had recovered to a level a little above EUR 10 until the coronavirus crisis caused global share prices to drop. Nevertheless, in the past 12 months, that is since May 23, 2019, our share price actually outperformed almost every other bank's in the STOXX Europe 600 Banks index, actually beating the index by more than 40% on average. The progress we've made is primarily down to 3 factors. First of all, our discipline. We are executing our plan. We are walking the talk. Secondly, it's our focus on areas where we are strong. And thirdly, of course, our employees across the world. How -- over the past 12 months but particularly since the coronavirus outbreak, it fills us with pride to see how our people have rise to the heights of performance. Within our branches, our offices or working from home, our people have been and are there for our clients. To this day, well over 60,000 of our employees are logging onto our systems from home every day, working to ensure that our clients can continue to rely on us. I'd like to thank all of them on behalf of the Management Board. Thank you. Thank you for all your hard work, your good spirits and your loyalty to our clients and to our bank. All these virtues, discipline, focus and loyalty of our employees, are immensely important to us, especially now as the world experiences its most severe crisis since the end of the Second World War. And it is right now that we are benefiting most from our new setup. It starts with our bank stability, which is a competitive advantage as it puts us in a position to support our clients in this situation. Now although numerous companies drew down on the credit lines facilities they have with us at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, our liquidity reserves at the end of the first quarter were at EUR 205 billion and thus comfortably above what the regulatory authorities require of us. Well, let me put it differently. Deutsche Bank's free liquidity today is more than 20% of our net balance sheet. Our risk management has also proven its value in this coronavirus situation. Our loan book remains low risk and well diversified. Half of our loans are to borrowers in Germany, and about 60% of these are well-collateralized private mortgages. So our loan loss provision rose to EUR 506 million in the first quarter. However, so far, we have had to set aside less money than many of our peers. Our Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio was at 12.8% as at March 31 and thus 250 basis points, 2.4%, higher than the regulatory minimum requirement of 10.4%. And we are making use of exactly that scope on behalf of our clients, on behalf of the economy and on behalf of society at large. It's in the interest of all our stakeholders for us to extend or grow our balance sheet at this time. In the first quarter of this year, we already increased our loan volume by EUR 25 billion to help our clients through this difficult phase. And as we do so, we are prepared to accept a modest and temporary potential drop in our CET1 ratio to below our goal of 12.5%. But we will not dilute our risk standards. Our revenues have also become less volatile, thanks to our new strategy, precisely because we have focused our activities. Now we are less exposed to volatile markets after withdrawing from equities trading for institutional clients in the secondary market while only keeping our equity issuance business. Instead, we can devote all our energy to businesses where we play a leading role. Thus, we even managed to increase our first quarter revenues in the Core Bank by 7% to EUR 6.4 billion. At group level, year-on-year revenues were stable. Now ladies and gentlemen, just think about what that really means. We exited our equities trading business in the middle of 2019. And despite no further revenues accruing from this business as of day 1, just 3 quarters later, we booked revenues at the same level as a year earlier when the equities trading business was still included. Now we did not only grow in our much more focused Investment Bank but also in our Private Bank, while revenues in the Corporate Bank and at our asset management (sic) [ manager ], DWS, remained virtually unchanged. Now all of this in a turbulent environment with even lower interest rates. It's not only the financial results, however, that demonstrated our strategy is right. We are also making market share gains at this very time when the environment is tough. So we have further extended our position in debt origination. Our Investment Bank since the beginning of March has been involved in around 200 transactions to help our clients raise debt capital of almost EUR 340 billion. We are playing to our strengths in financing on the global stage, including in the United States and in Asia. This strong position in the financing business also, of course, benefits our business with interest hedges. What's more, in Germany, we are back at the top of the ranks for corporate finance and advisory, ladies and gentlemen, with the highest market share since 2015. And in the region of -- in the EMEA region, Europe, Middle East and Africa, we are back in the top 5 ranks. Year-on-year, we managed to increase our revenues with our top 50 trade finance clients by 30%. And with our 100 biggest institutional clients, we managed to increase our revenues by more than 40%. And for the first time ever, in the first quarter of this year, we reached global #1 position in interest rate derivatives. At the same time, we are helping our retail clients to protect their assets while they are being squeezed by low interest rates and volatile capital markets. Our investment products business thus managed to more than offset the pressure from the interest rate environment at the start of the year. Wealth Management reported a rise in revenues, excluding specific items, of no less than 17, 1-7, percent. Now given all that we have achieved over recent months, we can take a little pride in saying that we are part of the solution in this crisis. Spearheaded by the work of our Corporate Bank, we've been able to advise and support the German government with its assistance programs, advice, for example, that consisted of bringing our expertise to bear in designing and implementing the programs; support in the form of our key role as a conveyor belt, if you wish, for those programs. Our Corporate Bank has already handled applications for some 6,500 support loans with a total volume of around EUR 5 billion. Ladies and gentlemen, without a dedicated Corporate Bank, all of this would be virtually inconceivable, a Corporate Bank which is there for business clients, the Mittelstand, family-owned companies and for large corporates at the same time, all in equal measure, offering financial solutions to each and every one of them. Our clients benefit from this, and so does our bank. You can see, ladies and gentlemen, that Deutsche Bank has so far performed well in this unprecedented situation. We, therefore, have no reason for letting up on our ambitions. We are sticking to our financial targets for 2022, which we announced last year. Now at the same time, we have the opportunity to change the way we work even faster than expected. Now what exactly do I mean by that? For example, we have committed ourselves to place our clients still more at the center of everything we do. This is precisely what we are demonstrating in the current crisis. It's not our clients who have to adapt to the processes we have in place, no. Our processes have to adapt to our clients' needs provided, of course, that we're always complying with regulatory requirements and our own rules and policies. In Germany, for example, we set up a coronavirus help desk at short notice in response to our clients' huge demand for information. We answered around 70,000 queries to date. And queries not only about our products but also about short-term working benefits or emergency aid for small companies. We're living at a time when a few weeks can decide the fate of a client, a time in which we are working together in our bank better than ever in an agile way and always, always looking for a solution. We want to retain and even strengthen this very spirit beyond the extraordinary situation we are experiencing. This is how we are currently laying groundwork for business in the coming years. 1/3 of all queries to do with the coronavirus crisis are from companies that previously haven't been clients of our bank. Many of these are small Mittelstand companies. Many a trade or craft professional or freelancer imagined themselves to be well served as customers of a fintech start-up as long as transaction charges were low. At this time of crisis, however, these customers are in just as much in need of a different level and depth of banking and advice. Ladies and gentlemen, they need it through a Hausbank, a local go-to bank for all their banking needs. And we are that Hausbank. And we do not only want to be that in Germany but on a global scale, a global Hausbank with a strong presence also in the United States, the biggest capital market in the world; and in Asia, which is still the world's most important growth region. This is where we see how strong the Deutsche Bank brand is. And it's at this time in particular that people are once again looking for strong brands. Now this trust in us goes hand-in-hand with a special responsibility for the economy but also for society as a whole. And this responsibility is especially important in a crisis situation. For example, we donated a total of 575,000 face masks to medical institutions that were in particularly urgent need of them in March and April. And let me say that I'm particularly pleased that our colleagues around the world have now collected some EUR 750,000 for charities supporting, amongst others, the homeless and children living on the streets. As a bank, we are doubling these donations after having already given EUR 500,000 in start-up capital for the campaign. And we continue to donate EUR 200 -- another EUR 200,000 that we would have spent for catering at a normal AGM. So all in all, this is a total of about EUR 2.2 million for those who need this up the most. Ladies and gentlemen, now the banking sector as well will be in a different shape when the pandemic has passed. We see 4 main trends that will shape the banking world over the coming years. A, a bank's size and market position will both become even more important as a competitive factor. Cost pressure will continue to intensify. And technology will play a crucial role in this respect, but it will also drive revenues. And sustainability is and remains a mega trend. Far from being halted by the coronavirus risk, it will even gain further momentum. Ladies and gentlemen, we at Deutsche Bank consider ourselves well prepared for these trends. Now let's start with the importance of size and market position. The banking business is, in many fields, a matter of scale. Although big banks currently have to fulfill particularly stringent capital requirements, this is also accompanied by greater confidence in their stability. Thus, especially in turbulent times, market leaders have an advantage. Their clients trust them. By contrast, those players stuck in a mid-table ranking may still get by when times are good, but they fall by the wayside when the going gets tough. This means that in the future, it will become even more important for us to build on our strengths, and that is exactly what we successfully initiated with our transformation last year. Wherever we do business, we have to occupy one of the top spots, and this is where we need to invest. We are one of the world's leading banks, one of the leading banks for corporates in Europe and the leading bank for private clients in Germany. And right now, that's an advantage. And this is something that will also help us when consolidation in the European banking sector happens, as it inevitably will and must. With our strong market positions in Germany and with our strategy, we are currently far better equipped for consolidation. Of course, size also helps with costs. But that's just one aspect. Cost discipline is painstaking work. Our numerous initiatives include the imminent merger of our private and business clients subsidiary in Germany into the parent company, Deutsche Bank AG, which will eliminate duplication. Also, here we follow the principle announced last summer, delivered now. And the current crisis situation has provided us with new ideas for potential cost savings. Let me just give you 2 examples. If more than 60% of employees worldwide can work away from their offices and still deliver excellent service to our clients, then of course we have to ask ourselves: A, can we give our staff additional flexibility to work from home if they want to? And two, if that's the case, do we need quite so many office space in expensive -- in particular in expensive urban centers? If, in many cases, video conferencing is almost as good as visiting a client, plus do I still have to travel so much? And of course, there's often no substitute for face-to-face meetings with clients and regulators, and we want to continue to be close to our clients. But we are set out to -- that we are going to significantly reduce the time we spend traveling. This will cut costs and benefit the environment. In this phase of upheaval, ladies and gentlemen, we have to make our bank even more weatherproof or, to be precise, more stormproof. No one knows exactly what the secondary and tertiary effects of this pandemic will be. Although we cannot determine the severity of the storm, but we can determine the strength of our ship. This is what we've learned from our history, our own history as well. After the 2008 financial crisis, Deutsche Bank was too late in recognizing that the world of banking will be different from how it was before. We were pleased about good short-term business performance, and we spent too little time thinking about how the bank needed to change itself. We will act differently this time. As we continue to rigorously implement our transformation program, we will thus have to reduce our costs further. And yes, this unfortunately means that we will have to implement job reductions as planned. Now this is not something we do lightly. In light of the corona crisis, since March 26, we have refrained from contacting individual employees whose jobs are to become redundant. Now, however, because this transformation is so essential for the future of our bank and we bear responsibility for a sustainable business model, we will, unfortunately, have to resume these personal discussions. This is always painful, and it is especially painful at a time like this. However, especially in that environment, we have to stick to our cost reduction programs. In doing so, we will do everything we can to make the job cuts in as socially responsible a manner as possible. The transformation will, of course, also impact our senior managers, ladies and gentlemen. Their number will also be reduced. We already have 13% fewer managing directors, it is the most senior level, than 2 years ago. And their number will continue to go down. As communicated when we published our first quarter results, we expect to achieve or even outperform our $19.5 billion cost target for this year. Therefore, we decided to further accelerate our cost reduction program. We as managers want to contribute to this as well. All members of the Management Board and the Group Management Committee will waive one month of our fixed pay. We act in this way because we in the management of Deutsche Bank see ourselves as entrepreneurs, as responsible business owners. And many of our Mittelstand clients are our role model for that in this respect. Ladies and gentlemen, people expect and want not only a stable Deutsche Bank but also one with sustainable profitability. It is our duty to make that happen and to ensure this is the case. And this is why we're also sticking to our target to reduce adjusted costs from EUR 21.5 billion last year to EUR 17 billion by 2022. Now while we talk about costs, technology is a key factor here. It's not just key to us becoming more efficient, mind you, it's also key to us providing a better service for our clients. For instance, more of our clients are using our mobile banking app and our online banking service. In Germany, the number of log-ins has increased to a peak of more than 2 million per day at times. In March, we saw over 3x the volume of online orders compared to the same time last year. And with our Autobahn platform, we not only clear $10 trillion worth of FX transactions every year, making us #2 clearer in the world, we're also offering this technology to our clients in the form of a mobile app since autumn of last year. So treasurers no longer have to be in an office to manage their global cash flows. They can also use their smartphones. About 30% of our FX revenues are based on technological innovations we implemented in the past 5 years, and this is how we were able to maintain our leading market position in this area. Now we aim to maintain this pace of digital innovation in the long term because technology is more important than ever, a fact that the corona crisis is highlighting. Digital business models are the big winners, and this trend won't suddenly reverse once the pandemic subsides. Now one thing is true for virtually every industry, including, of course, our industry, the banking industry: Digitalization is the new currency. It is the basis for those things on which success and failure will depend. It is the essential complement to our role as adviser and risk manager to our clients. And because technology is of such central importance to our success, we are committed to spending a total of EUR 13 billion on IT between 2019 and 2022 as part of our strategy. We are putting this budget to work precisely in those areas where we are the strongest. This means we will have fewer projects, but we are investing more in each one of them. What's more, we said to take a quantum leap in innovation by entering into cooperation with cloud providers. That means we will have access to the most modern IT infrastructure at all times without having to actually own and run it ourselves. That, too, will result in a greater focus on what will give us a competitive advantage, namely developing solutions like our own apps for our clients. At the same time, together with our partners, we want to use the cloud as an accelerator for innovation, for example by deploying more artificial intelligence. We will be able to accomplish more and innovate more, and we'll be cutting our costs as we do so. Now let me turn to the fourth trend that is increasingly shaping our industry. Sustainability may be overshadowed by the coronavirus right now, but it's bound to come back with a vengeance. People's concern for climate change is mounting. It's mounting. There's a heightened sense of urgency for swift climate action. And consequently, politicians and regulators will be looking more rather than less to banks for a response. This is also an area where we as Deutsche Bank have social responsibility but also see opportunities. The OECD estimates that from now until 2030, more than EUR 6 trillion of investment will be required every year to fight climate change globally. Naturally, banks have a role to play here by developing investment products, financing solutions and by providing advice to companies so that they can make their transition. We are convinced that in a few years, sustainability ratings will be just as important for companies as credit ratings from, for example, S&P, Moody's or Fitch are today. We are utterly committed to helping shape this transition. That is one of the reasons I decided last year to assume the position of Chairman of our group Sustainability Council. We made great progress, and we are now able to give you a clear target. Between now and 2025, we aim to generate at least EUR 200 billion of ESG business volume through sustainable financing and green investment products. Now this figure does not include the approximately EUR 70 billion of ESG assets under management by our asset manager, DWS. As a listed company, DWS sets its own targets. The figure of EUR 200 billion over a period of 6 years is a minimum amount, and it covers the loans we grant, the bonds we place and the sustainable assets we manage for our private clients. This, ladies and gentlemen, puts us in a pole position in the industry not only in terms of the total amount but also in terms of the time frame in which we want to achieve it. Beginning immediately, we will provide an annual progress report. Now the European Union's unified classification system for ESG activities, or taxonomy as it's referred to, will serve as a guideline for gauging what constitutes sustainable business. And in areas where the EU not yet developed its own rules or standards, we formulated our own comprehensible and transparent criteria. As we announced recently, we will also issue our first Deutsche Bank green bond just as soon as market conditions are right. We have everything we need in place. We are proud of this progress we made here, and we will continue resolutely along this path. Ladies and gentlemen, the coronavirus pandemic has turned our life and economy upside down. What used to appear certain now seems anything but. However, Deutsche Bank continues to be a steady anchor during these unprecedented times. We delivered on what we announced last year, and we will carry on delivering. It takes discipline, focus and innovative strengths. It takes will and a team spirit to take on challenges and master them. It takes responsible leaders who always understand the importance of being a role model, of inspiring their teams and of creating the kind of conditions across the globe that help the employees perform at their best. And it takes employees who want just that with the excellence and the passion that you, ladies and gentlemen, expect of Deutsche Bank. It is this level of excellence and passion that it takes to be this decisive step ahead of our competition. We demonstrated all this in numerous areas over the course of the past year and particularly so in the recent weeks and months. We are reaping the benefits of our new business model, a solid balance sheet and a conservative risk management. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are also benefiting from our roots in Germany. Germany is one of a number of countries that are coping best with this unprecedented challenge. And we want to play a part as a good corporate citizen and first and foremost as a promoter in support of trade and industry as the global Hausbank that is there for its clients at this difficult time. So no one should need to ask why Germany needs Deutsche Bank because it's obvious. We answer this question every day with everything we do and everything we make possible. Ladies and gentlemen, in our 150 years' history, we have demonstrated time and again that we can cope with big challenges. Our Chairman, Paul Achleitner, had just said in his speech our bank, Deutsche Bank, is characterized by a special level of resilience. In the 12 months since our last Annual General Meeting, we have shown that we continue in this tradition, and we will prove it once more in the 12 months to come. Thank you for placing your trust in Deutsche Bank.

Thank you very much, Mr. Sewing, for your statement. I think you have given our shareholders a clear idea of how the Management Board of our bank sees the development of the bank and which course it has taken. And on this course, the Supervisory Board will continue to support you in a constructive manner. Now this marks the end of the public broadcasting of our Annual General Meeting. Of course, our shareholders can continue following this AGM via the shareholder portal. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]