Deutsche Bank says it aims for its newly integrated asset and wealth management division to increase assets under management to around €1 trillion (around $1.28 trillion) by 2015 from €800 billion, as Germany’s biggest bank elaborated on strategy changes announced earlier in the summer.

Germany’s biggest bank, which in June this year unveiled its new corporate structure for segments including wealth management, said in a statement today that the developments of the AWM segment were designed to “fully exploit the potential” of its €800 billion of AuM. It intends to double its pre-tax income at the AWM unit to around €1.7 billion.

The new divison includes the former corporate banking and securities’ passive and third-party alternatives businesses such as exchange traded funds.

For the banking group as a whole, Deutsche said it intended to increase income before tax at its private and business clients division to around €3 billion, to reduce the cost-income ratio for corporate banking and securities’ business to under 65 per cent. It also intends to achieve a Basel III Core Tier 1 capital ratio of at least 8 per cent as of 31 March next year, rising to 10 per cent at the end of March in 2015.

One-off costs

The plans also involve a one-off cost of €4.0 billion to achieve savings of €4.5 billion a year by 2015.  Almost 40 per cent, or €1.7 billion, of the planned savings relates to the bank’s infrastructure, including investing in new integrated IT platforms. It also intends to put up about 40 properties for sale to consolidate its real estate holdings.

The bank said it is accelerating its drive to dump risk-weighted assets from non-core activities.

Meanwhile, the Frankfurt-listed bank reiterated its goal of increasing its geographical range; it said the Asia-Pacific region is its “strategic priority” due to its offering the strongest growth potential in the coming years.

Another important region is the Americas, Deutsche said, as the firm intends to tap an anticipated US economic recovery.