Deutsche Bank profits fall 47%

German investment firm Deutsche Bank announced that fourth-quarter profits fell 47 per cent compared to the same period 12 months ago.

Although net income was down to €0.97 billion (£0.73 billion) compared to €1.8 billion (£1.34 billion), the Frankfurt-based investment will writedown less than other firms in subprime losses resulting from the US mortgage collapse.

"I am pleased to report robust earnings for the fourth quarter, which concludes one of our best years ever and a year of solid performance in challenging times," said Deutsche Bank chairman Dr Josef Ackerman.

Dr Ackerman added: "In the fourth quarter, we again demonstrated the quality of our risk management. We had no net writedowns related to subprime, CDO or RMBS exposures."

He continued to say that net markdown was less than €50 million (£37.29 million) for the fourth quarter, stemming mostly from leveraged finance markets.

The Bloomberg news agency reported that Deutsche Bank's total markdowns would be €2.3 billion (£1.72 billion).

Citigroup will be writing down $22.1 billion (£11.26 billion), while Merrill Lynch & Co posted losses of $24.4 billion (£12.43 billion) due to subprime exposure.

Writedowns for the world's largest financial institutions now total more than $145 billion (£73.87 billion).

With fresh concerns about global markets arising, Dr Ackerman remarked: "Looking forward, we expect conditions to remain challenging in 2008. We have shown resilience in 2007. We face the future with confidence."

He went on to pledge the delivery of €8.4 billion (£6.26 billion) in pretax profits in 2008, and also said that the dividend would be increased by 12.5 per cent to €4.50 (£3.36) per share.

Shares in the investment, securities and savings firm have climbed 2.77 per cent to €76.47 (£57.03) in trading today in Frankfurt.