Deutsche Bank AG said Thursday that its fourth-quarter net profit slipped 48 percent from last year, but reported no new sub prime-related write-downs in the final three months of the year _ setting itself apart from other large banks that have reported otherwise. Last fall the bank said its write-downs related to the sub prime quagmire in the third quarter totaled ¤2.2 billion, but Chief Executive Josef Ackermann said that was not the case in the final three months. «In the fourth quarter, we again demonstrated the quality of our risk management. We had no net write-downs related to sub-prime, CDO or RMBS exposures,» he said. «Those trading businesses in which we reported losses in the third quarter produced a positive result in the fourth quarter.» Investors were relieved and pushed the bank's shares up 1.3 percent to ¤76.33 (US$111.60) in Frankfurt trading, according to a report of the Associated Press. Ackermann added that in leveraged finance, «where we had significant write-downs in the third quarter, net write-downs in the fourth quarter were less than ¤50 million (US$73.1 million).»
