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Quickborn, Germany, Feb 13, 2008 - (ABN Newswire) - Corporate news announcement processed and transmitted by Hugin ASA. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------
Growth trend continues - more than one million customers
Quickborn, Frankfurt / Main, 13 February 2008. comdirect bank (www.comdirect.de) ended financial year 2007 with pre-tax profit of EUR 90.5m (previous year: EUR 85.6m). "2007 was an outstanding financial year. We have continued our growth path in all respects and achieved our fifth record result in a row," said Andre Carls, CEO of comdirect bank. The shareholders participate in this success and the bank will again propose to the annual general meeting that the distributable profit be paid out in full. This would correspond to a dividend of 41 cents per share.
comdirect bank achieved record earnings in 2007 of EUR 277.9m, 26% more than in the previous year. Net interest income before provisions alone saw a rise of 43.3% to EUR 127.2m as a result of strong growth in the deposit volume and higher market interest rates. The number of securities transactions also increased by 16.1%. The execution of around 10 million orders and rising income from investment funds business and advice resulted in a rise of 11.8% in net commission income to EUR 152.7m.
Through the comvalue growth programme, the number of customers increased by 196,032 to 1,000,722. Andre Carls: "One million customers is an important and very pleasing milestone for us. It also reflects a dynamic growth trend that we intend to leverage in the current year." Assets under custody totalled EUR 20.4bn at the year-end, 24.3% more than in the previous year. This rise was driven, in particular, by growth in deposits resulting essentially from the success of the Tagesgeld PLUS ("call money plus") account. By the end of the year, Tagesgeld PLUS had attracted 400,414 customers with a six-fold increase in the number of accounts compared to 2006. In addition, in banking the number of current accounts rose by 29.7% to 337,578. In brokerage, the number of custody accounts increased by 39,783 to stand at 645,893 at the year-end. In advice, subsidiary comdirect private finance serviced 32,469 customers in its 27 offices throughout Germany, an increase of 62.2% compared to the previous year.
The scheduled costs for comvalue led to an increase in other administrative expenses of 48.3% to EUR 137.6m. "We have invested in attracting customers and generating product sales, as well as in personnel and advanced training. As the key figures show, we are reaping the benefits of this strategy," explained Andre Carls. Personnel costs went up by around 20% to EUR 39.7m, primarily as a result of the increase in the number of employees from 732 at the close of 2006 to 824 at the end of 2007. At EUR 10.1m, depreciation was on a par with the previous year. Overall, administrative expenses increased by 38.2% to EUR 187.4m. Consequently, the cost/income ratio rose from 60.4% to 67.0%.
By the end of 2009, comdirect bank intends to increase the number of customers to over 1.3 million. The pre-tax profit target for 2010 is considerably over EUR 100m, with a target for return on equity before tax of at least 25%.
WKN: 542800; ISIN: DE0005428007; Index: CDAX, CLASSIC All Share, Prime All Share, SDAX; Listed: Prime Standard in Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse, Geregelter Markt in Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse, Freiverkehr in Börse Berlin, Freiverkehr in Börse Düsseldorf, Freiverkehr in Hanseatische Wertpapierbörse zu Hamburg, Freiverkehr in Niedersächsische Börse zu Hannover, Freiverkehr in Bayerische Börse München, Freiverkehr in Börse Stuttgart;