Deutsche Bank AG said it is on the acquisition trail after recently buying two banks in Germany, but ruled out buying domestic rivals Commerzbank or Deutsche Postbank.
Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Josef Ackermann told a conference on Thursday a take-over of Commerzbank would not make sense for Deutsche Bank's shareholders, adding: "We are also not interested in Postbank."
Ackermann said that making Deutsche a larger bank was not necessarily the objective of take-overs and that Deutsche was big enough already to compete with rivals.
Ackermann also reiterated his goal of a sustainable return on equity before tax of 25 percent. Some investors in the past have questioned the sustainability of this target. Shares in Deutsche Bank were up 0.2 percent at 89.14 euros by 0914 GMT, while the German DAX index was little changed.
Commerzbank shares were down 0.2 percent at 27.20 euros. Deutsche Postbank stock was 0.4 percent higher at 61.74 euros. Deutsche Bank recently announced that it was buying a network of nearly 100 German retail bank branches from Norisbank for about 420 million euros ($539 million). That came soon after Deutsche Bank's take-over of retail lender Berliner Bank for almost 700 million euros in late June.
Deutsche is not the only bank which is interested in extending its retail presence in Germany. UniCredit which last year bought HVB, is also keen to build up its retail muscle in the country.