Deutsche Bank pleased investors with a smaller-than-expected fall in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday and pledged to shed 6,400 jobs world-wide in a bid to boost earnings by over 20 percent in 2005. But some analysts and Deutsche shareholders said Germany's biggest bank had failed to present a convincing strategy for growth and compared its emphasis on cost reduction unfavourably with French rival BNP Paribas' expansion plans.

Copyright Reuters, 2005