	commerzbank sees lower operating profit this year commerzbank ag cbkg f management board chairman walter seipp said that from the present viewpoint the bank must expect full operating profit to be lower than in in the first two months of the year partial operating profit excluding trading on the bank s own account declined he said without giving details the interest surplus fell pct compared with ths of results while the commission surplus because of the quiet stock exchange business fell back still more strongly by contrast the personnel and fixed asset expenses increased german banks do not report full operating profit but seipp said last year the figure for the first time had topped one billion marks for the parent bank and the group result was around pct higher than this commenting on seipp said we were able to raise the full operating profit slightly above the record result of because own account profits increased slightly he gave no concrete details but added that in january and february good own account trading profits meant that the drop in full operating ings was more modest than that in the partial operating figure the bank would as a result be more profit oriented in future developing for example more into investment banking keeping a tight rein on personnel costs and dampening expenditures on fixed assets turning to results seipp said by year end there had been a strong growth in business volume over the year business volume rose by pct to billion marks compared with seipp added group balance sheet volume rose by pct to billion it would have been around five billion marks higher still if currency relationships had remained unchanged in the parent bank the interest surplus rose nine pct in the year while the interest margin held roughly at s pct despite pressure on credit rates the surplus on commission business which had soared by a quarter in rose by pct last year thanks almost exclusively to growth in securities commissions seipp said personnel expenditure was up pct last year at more than billion marks fixed asset expenditure rose by pct to more than mln as a result the parent bank partial operating profit rose by pct to mln marks parent bank tax payment rose to mln marks last year from mln in seipp said extraordinary ings included a high two figure million in profit from the sale of the bank s aeg ag aegg f shares to daimler benz ag daig f during the latter s majority stake purchase booked last year the ability of the bank to write off depreciations in credit business against profits from securities trading and ings on the sale of stakes had been utilised as in prior years to its full extent because of numerous insolvencies at home by far the largest part of the provisions were set aside for individual write downs from domestic business abroad the circle of problem debtor countries rose last year although the ratio of credit exposure to provisions improved further seipp said that because about half the group s exposure to problem nations was in dollars the bank had swapped into dollars individual provisions hitherto held primarily in marks this means that no open currency positions exist any longer on the amount of the provision that is made against an actual default he added despite the increase in concern over debtor nations in the last few weeks he said the international banking community is better armed than it was against payment problems all banks had significantly strengthened their capital base most european banks had made considerable provisions against bad debts while goverments and central banks were better prepared for unforseen difficulties he described debt equity swaps as a very interesting new approach to indebted nations problems there was a lot of interest in direct investment via an equity participation in latin america particularly from west german firms reuter 
