German insurer Allianz posted better-than-expected second-quarter profit at its troubled banking arm on Friday, as it gave details of the strong group performance it announced earlier this week. Germany's biggest insurer said its banking arm - almost entirely Dresdner Bank - made a net profit of 249 million euros ($309 million), nearly double the same period last year and 7 percent more than a Reuters poll had forecast.
The group's other divisions, including life and health insurance, property and casualty insurance and fund management, also performed strongly, contributing to a 65 percent rise in overall earnings published earlier in the week.
Chief Executive Michael Diekmann lifted the group's profit forecast for the year on Friday to more than 4 billion euros - it had previously been indicated at more than 3.5 billion euros - and said Allianz would beat its divisional targets.
Allianz's finance chief later referred to the prospect of hundreds of millions of euros of cost cutting at Dresdner, adding that the low provisions for bad debt it would have in 2005 were unsustainable.
"We are talking about cost-cutting, and this (in the) significant hundreds of millions," Helmut Perlet said.
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