Kay Wolf brought a dose of gallows humour with him. „I would never have dreamed of such a response to my first press call,“ explains the former Deutsche Bank manager at Deutsche Pfandbriefbank's telephone press conference. In fact, questioners are crowding the specialist bank for commercial real estate financing like never before after the US real estate turmoil also shook up the Garching-based bank.

The new head of the bank has to answer questions for an hour and a quarter, just over a month after starting work and a week after taking over as CEO of the bank, which operates under the abbreviation “pbb“. Wolf (born in 1976) answers an obvious question straight away: „No, I have not regretted this move to pbb.“

Wolf does not come from the real estate business either. Although he worked for Hypo Real Estate Bank in 2006 and 2007, he then joined the Deutsche Bank empire as Chief Credit Officer. In terms of strategy, he also refers to the second half of the year, when a capital market day is to be held. Nevertheless, he manoeuvres his way confidently through the Q&A session and avoids the shoals. One question was whether there needed to be a capital increase. The bank has 1 billion euros more capital than it needs to hold, was the answer.

Wolf wants to get one message across on this day anyway. The bank's situation is much better than the latest price developments on the capital market suggest, he says: “pbb is a fundamentally healthy bank.“ He justifies this with three points: It has remained profitable, the capital base is well above the regulatory minimum requirements, and the bank has a comfortable liquidity position. Chief Financial Officer Marcus Schulte takes the same stance. Only the first-ranking secured portion of the loans are ever granted: “This has not always been reflected in the public debate so far.“

The message is at least getting through on the stock market. Although the share price was down 4.4% at its peak in the morning of the press conference, it then recovered by the Xetra close with a plus of 9.6% to 4.56 euros. The share price had already risen by almost 10% on Wednesday. “We know that we have to regain confidence in the capital market,“ Wolf admits at the same time. The company wants to do this by identifying risks with the necessary objectivity, but also by communicating transparently.

The forecast is also characterized by the desire to strengthen the public's confidence. In the current year, risk provisioning should be lower, but once again above average, explains Wolf: “We therefore expect a pre-tax profit for the year as a whole that will be significantly higher than in 2023.“ Margins, which recently jumped from 170 to 205 basis points with new business shrinking from 9.0 billion to 7.2 billion euros, should continue to rise. On this basis, the bank expects interest and commission income of 475 to 500 million euros, after 482 million euros in the previous year. The cost/income ratio will rise from 45.8% to around 50% due to high investments, but should fall below 45% in the medium term.

According to the forecast, the new business will continue to fall to between 6 billion and 7 billion euros. This takes into account the market environment, particularly in the first half of the year, says Wolf. The existing portfolio will therefore remain almost stable.