Re­se­arch | 7 April 2025 10:30

Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Um­welt­Bank AG – by GBC AG

07.04.2025 / 10:30 CET/CEST
Dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of a Re­se­arch, trans­mit­ted by EQS News – a ser­vice of EQS Group.
The is­suer is so­le­ly re­spon­si­ble for the con­tent of this re­se­arch. The re­sult of this re­se­arch does not con­sti­tu­te in­vest­ment ad­vice or an in­vi­ta­ti­on to con­clude cer­tain stock ex­ch­an­ge tran­sac­tions.


Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of GBC AG to Um­welt­Bank AG

Com­pa­ny Name: Um­welt­Bank AG
ISIN: DE0005570808
Re­ason for the re­se­arch: Re­se­arch Com­ment
Re­com­men­da­ti­on: Buy
Tar­get pri­ce: 10.40 EUR
Tar­get pri­ce on sight of: 31.12.2025
Last ra­ting ch­an­ge:
Ana­lyst: Cos­min Fil­ker, Mar­cel Gold­mann

Preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res for 2024 in line with gui­dance, re­turn to pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty ex­pec­ted from 2025 on­wards

Ac­cor­ding to the preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res pu­blished as at 31 March 2025, Um­welt­Bank AG si­gni­fi­cant­ly im­pro­ved its to­tal in­co­me com­pared to the pre­vious year, as ex­pec­ted. This was due in par­ti­cu­lar to net in­te­rest in­co­me, which at € 44.95 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 41.11 mil­li­on) was slight­ly abo­ve our ex­pec­ta­ti­ons (old GBC fo­re­cast: € 43.44 mil­li­on). This is li­kely to have be­ne­fi­ted pri­ma­ri­ly from the strong in­crease in cus­to­mer de­po­sits to € 3,824 mil­li­on (31/12/2013: € 2,854 mil­li­on). By in­ves­t­ing cus­to­mer de­po­sits at matching ma­tu­ri­ties (ECB in­vest­ment), Um­welt­Bank AG is able to achie­ve an in­te­rest mar­gin of around 100 ba­sis points, mea­ning that a hig­her vo­lu­me of de­po­sits au­to­ma­ti­cal­ly leads to hig­her in­te­rest in­co­me.

At € ‑8.52 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € ‑5.61 mil­li­on), ear­nings be­fo­re ta­xes and re­ser­ves were wi­thin the company’s gui­dance ran­ge (€ ‑5 mil­li­on to € ‑10 mil­li­on). In our pre­vious fo­re­cast, we had as­su­med a pre-tax re­sult of € ‑5.76 mil­li­on. The hig­her to­tal in­co­me of € 59.02 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 52.23 mil­li­on) was off­set by a si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in to­tal ex­pen­ses to­tal­ling € 67.52 mil­li­on (pre­vious year: € 57.83 mil­li­on). This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly re­la­ted to the trans­for­ma­ti­on that was con­tin­ued in 2024 and has now been lar­ge­ly com­ple­ted, which in­cludes the di­gi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of pro­ces­ses and the com­ple­ti­on of the con­ver­si­on of the core ban­king sys­tem.

As part of the preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res, the Ma­nage­ment Board of Um­welt­Bank is fo­re­cas­ting a re­turn to pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty in 2025 and ex­pects ear­nings be­fo­re ta­xes in the ran­ge of € 5 mil­li­on to € 10 mil­li­on. Diet­mar von Blü­cher had al­re­a­dy pro­vi­ded an out­look on the fu­ture dri­vers of busi­ness de­ve­lo­p­ment at the Ca­pi­tal Mar­kets Day in mid-Ja­nu­ary. The­se were con­firm­ed by the preli­mi­na­ry fi­gu­res.

UmweltBank’s ear­nings si­tua­ti­on will be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by a si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in net in­te­rest in­co­me. This is due to the ex­pan­si­on of the de­po­sit busi­ness with pri­va­te cus­to­mers, which is to be in­creased to EUR 4.3 bil­li­on in the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year and to EUR 5.9 bil­li­on by 2028. In ad­di­ti­on to sa­vings pro­ducts, the de­po­sit busi­ness will be dri­ven in par­ti­cu­lar by the cur­rent ac­count, which is about to be laun­ched. At the same time, the Ma­nage­ment Board of Um­welt­Bank ex­pects the len­ding vo­lu­me to move si­de­ways, but ex­pi­ring lo­ans are to be re­pla­ced by new lo­ans at im­pro­ved con­di­ti­ons, which should be re­flec­ted in an in­crease in net in­te­rest in­co­me. New len­ding busi­ness in the ran­ge of € 250 mil­li­on to € 350 mil­li­on is ex­pec­ted for the cur­rent fi­nan­cial year. An ex­pan­si­on to € 650 mil­li­on is plan­ned by 2028. The len­ding busi­ness re­mains sub­ject to ca­pi­tal rest­ric­tions, which will be fur­ther tigh­ten­ed by the im­ple­men­ta­ti­on of CRR III.

The ex­pec­ted in­crease in net in­te­rest in­co­me and net com­mis­si­on and tra­ding in­co­me will in­iti­al­ly be off­set by a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly low in­crease in ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­ve ex­pen­ses. This is against the back­drop of the trans­for­ma­ti­on im­ple­men­ted in re­cent ye­ars, which should lead to a si­gni­fi­cant de­crease in ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­ve ex­pen­ses from 2025 on­wards. We ex­pect ad­mi­nis­tra­ti­ve ex­pen­ses to in­crease again in sub­se­quent ye­ars due to ri­sing mar­ke­ting ex­pen­ses and hig­her IT ex­pen­ses.

As part of this stu­dy, we have re­fi­ned our fo­re­casts for the cur­rent and co­ming fi­nan­cial year and, for the first time, for­mu­la­ted a fo­re­cast for the 2027 fi­nan­cial year. We are as­sum­ing a gra­du­al, si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in to­tal in­co­me, which will be off­set by a dis­pro­por­tio­na­te­ly low in­crease in cos­ts. Ac­cor­ding to our esti­ma­tes, the cost-in­co­me ra­tio will fall be­low the 100% th­res­hold in the 2025 fi­nan­cial year at 89.7% and fall si­gni­fi­cant­ly to 76.6% by the 2027 fi­nan­cial year.

The sum of the dis­coun­ted re­si­du­al ear­nings re­sults in a va­lue of € 370.80 mil­li­on. With 35.66 mil­li­on shares out­stan­ding, this re­sults in a fair en­ter­pri­se va­lue per share of € 10.40 (pre­vious­ly: € 10.00), which cor­re­sponds to a slight in­crease in the tar­get pri­ce. This is due in par­ti­cu­lar to the first-time in­clu­si­on of the esti­ma­tes for the 2027 fi­nan­cial year, which pro­vi­des a hig­her ba­sis for cal­cu­la­ting the ter­mi­nal va­lue than the 2026 fi­nan­cial year. Ba­sed on the cur­rent share pri­ce, we con­ti­nue to as­sign a BUY ra­ting.

You can down­load the re­se­arch here: http://​www​.more​-ir​.de/​d​/​3​2​1​9​2​.​pdf

Cont­act for ques­ti­ons:
GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg
0821241133 0
research@​gbc-​ag.​de
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Of­fen­le­gung mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sens­kon­flik­te nach § 85 WpHG und Art. 20 MAR Beim oben ana­ly­sier­ten Un­ter­neh­men ist fol­gen­der mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flikt ge­ge­ben: (1,4,5a,6a,7,11); Ei­nen Ka­ta­log mög­li­cher In­ter­es­sen­kon­flik­te fin­den Sie un­ter:
https://​www​.gbc​-ag​.de/​d​e​/​O​f​f​e​n​l​e​g​ung
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Date (time) Com­ple­ti­on: 07.04.2025 (8:34 am)
Date (time) first trans­mis­si­on: 07.04.2025 (10:30 am)

Ori­gi­nal-Re­se­arch: Um­welt­Bank AG (by GBC AG): Buy

GBC AG
Hal­der­stra­ße 27
86150 Augs­burg

Pho­ne: +49 821 241133–0
E‑mail: office(@)gbc-ag.de

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