COMMERZBANK AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT

Group Management Report
158
102 Commerzbank Annual Report 2011
Net commission income rose to €1,086m as a result of strong foreign trade and higher in-
come from related product categories, but also as a result of increasing demand from SMEs
for capital market products, compared with €983m in 2010. Net trading income came to
€-42m, down by €66m on 2010, largely due to positive remeasurement effects from credit
hedge transactions contained in last year’s figure. Net investment income for the reporting
period amounted to €–51m, mainly as a result of remeasurement effects on ownership interests.
Current net income from entities accounted for using the equity method was €11m in
2011. Other net income amounted to €–2m compared with €13m in the prior year period.
Thanks to the robust economic conditions in Germany in 2011, net allocations to loan loss
provisions were just €188m for lending in the period under review. The prior-year result
contained net allocations of €279m.
At €1, 461m, operating expenses were up by 1.3%, which was only slightly higher than
the 2010 figure of €1, 442m; this was due in particular to higher charges for pension provision.
Overall, the Mittelstandsbank segment posted pre-tax profit of €1,527m for 2011, which
represents a year-on-year decrease of 4.4%.
The operating return on equity based on average capital employed of €5.4bn was 28.4%
(prior-year period: 28.8%). The cost/income ratio again reached an excellent 46.0% (2010:
43.4%).
Main developments in 2011
Leading bank for corporate customers in Germany
In a market environment challenged by the European sovereign debt crisis, Mittelstandsbank
supported its customers in Germany and abroad in 2011 as a reliable funding partner. This
underscores our position as a leading corporate customer bank, especially in our core market
of Germany. Despite companies having unrestricted access to the credit market, demand
for credit was rather subdued throughout 2011. The positive rating migration in the lending
portfolio showed that our customers came through the financial market crisis solidly
funded. Despite interest rates being low, we saw good growth in investment management.
Integration of Dresdner Bank successfully completed
In the first half of 2011, Mittelstandsbank was still heavily dominated by the final phase of
the integration of Dresdner Bank, with the customer and product data migration in April as
well as the physical merger of around 150 regional branches into their target locations.
Above all, the regional implementation of our new organisational structure was completed
much earlier than expected; this meant that we created an extremely optimised support
model for our customers and expanded and standardised our range of products.