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Deutsche Elaborates Strategy Goals; Reiterates Asia Ambitions, Efficiency Targets
Tom Burroughes
11 September 2012
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.