COMMERZBANK AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT

Group Risk Report
224
168 Commerzbank Annual Report 2011
› Financial Institutions portfolio
Page 172 f.
Credit lines and value-creating limit utilisations remained largely stable throughout the
year. Risk management, which was optimised in 2011 in particular with the implementation
of systematic management measures in lower rating classes, and the expansion of early risk
identification, led to a slight reduction in risk density from 37 to 34 basis points.
Mittelstandsbank
This segment comprises all the Group’s activities with mid-size corporate customers (where
they are not assigned to Central & Eastern Europe or Corporates & Markets), the public sector
and institutional customers. The segment is also responsible for the Group’s relationships
with domestic and foreign banks, financial institutions and central banks.
2011 was dominated by the euro and sovereign debt crisis and its initial effects on the
real economy. Added to this there were events such as the natural disaster in Japan. The
initial effects of the crisis on Germany’s core industries became noticeable during 2011. At
the moment, only a slight slowdown has been detected in the major sectors such as
mechanical engineering and the automotive industry (the level of incoming orders is still
good), although the order backlog will gradually shrink.
In general, the current economic situation is reflected in the Corporates Domestic subportfolio
in the form of a sideways movement within the portfolio. The positive rating
migration for individual customers which was ongoing until mid-year has now come to a
standstill. Risk density in this area was 28 basis points at December 31, 2011, which is low
for the mid-sized company financing area.
EaD in Corporates International changed to €14bn and EL to €40m. Risk density
remained at 28 basis points as at December 31, 2011. Overall EaD in the Mittelstandsbank
increased by €4bn to €115bn at year-end 2011.
For details of developments in the Financial Institutions portfolio see page 172 f.
Central & Eastern Europe
This segment includes the activities of the Group’s operating units and investments in
Central and Eastern Europe and has a total exposure of €26bn.
The economic situation of the Central and Eastern European economies is characterised
by continued uncertainty as a result of the sovereign debt crisis. However, thanks to rigorous
risk management, risk density in this segment declined from 84 to 73 basis points in 2011.
In 2011 Poland continued to achieve noticeable economic growth, although this slowed
down in the second half. The BRE Group forms the largest part of the portfolio within the
CEE segment with an exposure of around €23bn. Intensive efforts to further optimise
operational management of risk and the positive economic environment of 2011 contributed
to further improving the segment’s good risk quality.