By Tom Sims
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank swung to better-than-expected net profit in the first quarter of 2021 as strength at the investment bank helped offset the headwinds of an ongoing restructuring program and the coronavirus pandemic.
Deutsche painted a rosier look for 2021, saying it now expects revenues to be "essentially flat," compared with a previous estimate of "marginally lower".
The German lender said on Wednesday that its first-quarter net profit attributable to shareholders was 908 million euros ($1.10 billion), which compares with a year-earlier loss of 43 million euros. Analysts had expected a profit of almost 600 million euros.
It was the strongest quarter for Deutsche since the first quarter of 2014, as revenue at its fixed-income trading business and origination and advisory services surged, trends that have also lifted profits of competing banks.
"These results give us confidence that we'll reach our 2022 targets," Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing said.
($1 = 0.8282 euros)
(Reporting by Tom Sims and Patricia Uhlig; Editing by Riham Alkousaa, Kirsti Knolle)
