Frankfurt — Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, yesterday said third-quarter profit had more than tripled and beaten analyst estimates, helped by tax gains.

Preliminary net income rose to 1,4bn from 435m a year earlier, the bank said. That beat analysts' 811m median estimate.

Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann sidestepped the worst of the financial crisis while shunning government aid.

The Frankfurt-based bank profited from record-low interest rates that drove revenue from trading debt, currencies and commodities to a record at JPMorgan Chase and to the third-highest level in history at Goldman Sachs Group, according to analysts. Deutsche Bank shares fell as much as 5% as pretax profit did not beat all analyst estimates.

"We saw a similar fairly ambivalent response to US investment banking numbers and the headline pretax figure wasn't a blowout," said Matthew Clark, a London-based analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods. "We need to wait before we can judge the quality."

Pretax profit was about 1,3bn , missing Clark's estimate of 1,53bn. The median analyst estimate was 1,19bn.

Deutsche Bank was down 3,7% at 53,31 yesterday in Frankfurt trading. The stock gained 92% this year, valuing the company at 33,1bn.

Net income was boosted by tax credits and the resolution of tax audits from previous years, the bank said. All business segments would report positive results, it said.

"After the good figures from Goldman and JPMorgan, analysts expected pretax profit to exceed all estimates, but they didn't," said Olaf Kayser, an analyst at Landesbank- Baden Wuerttemberg, who has a "hold" rating on the stock.