Commerzbank's share price performance has been one of the brightest stars of the German stock market since the start of 2025.

Commerzbank, the German lender, said last Friday that it logged a 13 per cent year-on-year gain in its first-quarter 2025 operating result, at €1.2 billion ($1.35 billion).

Based on the result attributable to Commerzbank shareholders, the figure was €834 million, rising from €747 million.

Revenues rose 12 per cent on a year earlier to €3.1 billion, with net commission income rising 6 per cent to €1 billion. The bank’s cost/income ratio narrowed by two percentage points to 56 per cent. The Frankfurt-listed bank said it had €40 million of restructuring expenses in the quarter, according to a statement. (The restructuring was linked to digitalisation and increased use of international locations – joined by further job cuts, most of which are in Germany.)

The bank said it achieved a double-digit return on tangible equity of 11.1 per cent.

Its Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio – its capital buffer – was 15.1 per cent, which Commerzbank said, “demonstrates high potential for capital return.”

In March, Commerzbank completed its share buyback of €400 million. Together with the share buyback of €600 million implemented between November 2024 and January 2025, Commerzbank bought a total of €1 billion of its own shares as part of the capital return for the financial year 2024. In addition to the share buybacks, the bank said it proposes to pay a dividend of €0.65 per share (2023: €0.35 per share), which will be decided at the Annual General Meeting on 15 May.

Looking ahead, Commerzbank said it “continues to aim for a higher net result of around €2.8 billion for the full year, before restructuring expenses. After restructuring expenses, it expects a result of around €2.4 billion”. 

In April, Germany's antitrust authorities approved Italy-headquartered UniCredit's plans to own just under 30 per cent of Commerzbank. This clears an obstacle to UniCredit's aimn to take over Commerzbank. (See a related story here.) Since the start of 2025, shares in Commerzbank have surged by almost 63 per cent; the German DAX Index of 40 leading firms is up by 17.4 per cent over the same period.