Record first-quarter debt sales and trading revenues drove Deutsche Bank’s corporate banking and securities arm to profit for the first time since 2007, which in turn boosted performance-related pay and kept overall costs flat despite the unit shedding nearly 1,500 staff in the past year.

That helped Deutsche turn a first-quarter group net loss last year into a €1.2bn ($1.6bn) profit this time, and the performance helped persuade the bank's supervisory board to ask chief executive Josef Ackermann to sign on for a further three years at the helm rather than stepping down as planned next year.