Commerzbank, the German bank that has been selling off non-domestic assets including its UK-based Kleinwort Benson business, said it suffered a pre-tax loss of €1.367 billion ($1.970 billion) in the first six months of this year, compared with a profit of €894 million in the same period a year ago.

Year-on-year comparisons are difficult, a spokesperson told WealthBriefing today, because over the past 12 months, Commerzbank had bought a raft of banking assets from the German bancassurer Allianz – including Dresdner Bank – but has subsequently been in the process of selling some businesses, such as units in Liechtenstein and Switzerland, as part of a condition of receiving German state aid.

The Frankfurt-listed bank said its cost-income ratio had surged to 80.4 per cent at 30 June, 2009, up from 64.1 per cent a year before.

In the second quarter of this year, the German bank suffered a net operating loss of €201 million, considerably narrower than the €591 million loss in the first quarter of this year.

Commerzbank has been spinning off non-German assets in recent months as part of its capital-raising plans and because it is required to do so under European Union rules as a condition of receiving bailout money from the German state. Among the assets on the block is Kleinwort Benson, the UK private bank.

The bank has also sold Bank Reuschel & Co, a Munich-based bank, to Conrad Hinrich Donner Bank; Commerzbank has also sold its Swiss business to Vontobel, the Swiss bank, and sold Dresdner Bank (Switzerland) to LGT Group, the Liechtenstein-based wealth manager.