Deutsche Bank warns on profits

One-time effects resulting from Deutsche Bank's saving program would have a "significant negative impact" on group earnings in the final three-month period of 2012, Germany's biggest private lender announced Thursday.

In addition, the bank's fourth-quarter earnings performance is expected to be undercut by asset writedowns and the scaling back of risks.

"The fourth quarter of 2012 was characterized by a continued difficult macroeconomic environment with low volatility and by the usual seasonal slowdown," the bank said in a statement.

Nevertheless, Deutsche Bank considers its operational result in October and November to be "solid" across core businesses, although it gave no figures about profits and revenues.

The bank also said that it had created an in-house "non-core unit" - meaning a so-called bad bank - to hold and eventually sell-off its toxic assets worth about 122 billion euros ($159 billion).

The announcements on Thursday came just one day after 500 police searched Deutsche Bank premises in Frankfurt and several other German cities for evidence of tax fraud.

Some 25 Deutsche Bank employees stand accused of aiding and abetting tax evasion in connection with the EU trade in carbon emissions certificates. Police arrested five of the employees for obstruction of justice.

On Thursday, the series of bad news caused investors to shed Deutsche Bank shares, causing share prices to fall by almost 3 percent at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

uhe/hc (dpa, Reuters, AFP)