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Best Bank: Deutsche Bank |
Deutsche Bank can comfortably claim to be the best bank in its domestic market. It was the only big German institution to avoid a state injection of capital in the past year. Deutsche speedily recalibrated its business model following the collapse of Bear Stearns and still generated €16.1 billion of net revenues in the 12-month period ending March 2009. Like many of its international peers, it bounced back spectacularly in Q1 from a loss-making year to post €1.8 billion of income on revenues of €7.2 billion – giving it a return on equity of 22%.
Its freshly acquired stake in Deutsche Postbank strengthens its retail banking franchise substantially and gives it the largest number of private bank branches domestically.
Taking investment banking activity to include advisory, debt and equity capital markets, UBS had an outstanding 12 months, especially in M&A, where it ended the year with a 20% market share, marginally ahead of Deutsche with a deal value of €50 billion.