Bloomberg News
FRANKFURT Deutsche Bank AGs third-quarter profits rose nearly 800% from the year earlier as last years acquisition of Bankers Trust Corp. boosted investment banking earnings.
Europes biggest banking company reported net income of $504 million. Last year it said bonus payments and other costs related to the Bankers Trust deal curbed earnings.
Buying Bankers Trust helped elevate Deutsches standing in global bond sales. Still, it lags such Wall Street rivals as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in arranging mergers and initial public offerings. Deutsche Bank ranks 16th this year in arranging mergers, and its German rival Dresdner Bank AG is 13th.
Deutsches investment banking pretax profit rose 68% in the first nine months, boosted by fees from trading and managing securities sales for companies like Infineon Technologies AG and Deutsche Telekom AG.
A spokesman for Deutsche said one-eighth of the companys nine-month fee and commission income stemmed from arranging mergers.
Deutsche Bank is trying to get approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to list its shares in the United States, which would give it a currency for acquisitions here. Clemens Boersig, the companys chief financial officer, said in a conference call with analysts that the move depends on the SEC and we dont want to put pressure on them.
Allianz AG, Germanys biggest insurer, also is waiting for SEC clearance to list its shares in the United States. While the two companies wait, the Swiss banking company UBS AG has a deal to buy Paine Webber Group Inc. of New York, and Dresdner has a deal for Wasserstein, Perella & Co. of New York.
Derek Chambers, an analyst at HSBC Holdings PLC in London, said Deutsches investment banking business is holding up well but not as well as UBS Warburgs.
Deutsche chairman Rolf Breuer said in a statement sent to the New York Stock Exchange that he expects good results in the fourth quarter despite the extremely delicate market environment.
The German bank has said it considered bidding for J.P. Morgan & Co., which announced a deal in September to sell to Chase Manhattan Corp.
Deutsche also has said it plans to continue selling holdings in industrial companies to free up cash for expansion. The partial sale of its stake in Allianz last June was the first substantial step in this direction.
