Germany's largest bank, aiming to rebuild its financial fortunes after a torrid 2016, said Q2 profits rose.

Deutsche Bank, which is battling to improve financial performance after seeing its market value halved last year, today reported pre-tax profit of €822 million ($960 million) in the three months to the end of June, up from €408 million a year ago.

The Frankfurt-based lender, which is restructuring some of its operations, has like some of its rivals looked to build out its wealth management/private banking by recruiting in a number of regions.

Net income came in at €466 million, up from €20 million in the prior-year period; revenues, however, fell 10 per cent on a year earlier, standing at €6.6 billion.

Shares in the bank were down by around 1 per cent in mid-afternoon trading today. 

“Despite the significant improvement, this level of profitability falls short of our longer term aspirations. Revenues were not as universally strong as we would have liked, in large measure because of muted client activity in many of the capital markets. As we modernise our bank we are turning our focus onto building profitable growth,” John Cryan, group chief executive, said. 

The bank said it was hit to the tune of more than €340 million from a tightening of spreads on its own debt and losses on sale of businesses.

In total, headcount – on a full-time-equivalent basis – fell by 1,525 in the second quarter of this year from the previous three months. In total, there are 96,652 employees at the bank. 

At the private and commercial banking arm, net revenues at €2.6 fell 7 per cent in the second quarter, caused by an absence of gains from the sale of shares in VISA Europe reported in the prior-year period and lower revenue base as a result of the sale of the private client services business last year.

The continued negative impact of the lower interest rate environment on deposit revenues was to a great extent counterbalanced by growth in loan revenues and higher fee income from current accounts and investment products, the bank said, 

Deutsche Asset Management net revenues, in the second quarter of 2017, of €676 fell million fell 4 per cent below the second quarter of last year. 

As previously reported, Deutsche Bank said it is making headway in its planned partial initial public offering of its asset management arm. The bank announced its plans for a partial IPO of the unit in March.