Positive result and significant progress in portfolio reduction

The EAA finished the first nine months of 2015 with a net profit totalling around EUR 9 million. We are therefore confident we will be able to achieve our objectives for the current fiscal year and generate a break-even result for 2015 – even though the reduction in the portfolio inevitably results in lower income.

The wind-up result achieved to date is already better than the planned values for all of 2015. In the first nine months the banking book portfolio has decreased by EUR 14.6 billion to EUR 37.7 billion, which equates to a reduction of about 28%. One of the main reasons for this reduction was the successful sale of WestImmo. The notional volume of the trading portfolio fell by around EUR 100 billion to EUR 366.5 billion; that is a decrease of more than 21% since the start of the year.

The economic environment and ECB policy have facilitated the portfolio reduction until now, and from today’s perspective the framework conditions for our work will also remain positive going forward. Moreover, the quality of the remaining portfolio continues to be good thanks to the stabilisation of the relevant markets and a wind-up strategy that has always aimed to scale back the portfolio in a balanced manner across all rating categories. The share of investment-grade securities in the banking book portfolio (rating categories A0-C2) was around 66% as at the end of the third quarter of 2015.