Deutsche Bank posts surprise profit in fourth quarter

Deutsche Bank posted a surprise pre-tax profit of 253 million euros ($285 million) in the last quarter of 2014, helped by an unexpected drop in litigation costs and a one-off tax gain.

Analysts had expected the bank to post a pre-tax loss of 83 million euros for the quarter, according to the median result of a Reuters poll of analysts.

Analysts expected the bank to post 1 billion euros in litigation costs in the quarter, whereas actual costs were just 207 million euros, Germany's largest lender said on Thursday.

Pretax profit for the full year more than doubled to 3.1 billion euros, Deutsche Bank said in a statement.

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