Deutsche Bank - auf wiedersehen, Josef Gee thanks, guys. If Josef Ackermann was listening as his successors unveiled their strategy for Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, he must have been biting his tongue. Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain brought the curtain unceremoniously down on the Ackermann era, starting by ditching the target of 25 per cent return on equity that had become a lead weight around Deutsche's ankles. From now until 2015, which is as far ahead as the bank is prepared to look, the target is 12 per cent. That is one way of measuring the new reality at Deutsche. Yet two other benchmarks offered by Messrs Fitchen and Jain may be more immediately relevant. The first is to achieve a cost/income ratio of 65 per cent by 2015, down from 78 per cent today. Achieving that will make the ROE target a bit easier to meet. The second is a core tier one Basel III capital ratio of 10 per cent. Getting to that - a regulatory necessity - will make the ROE target a bit more of a challenge. Deutsche certainly needs to lift its ROE, which was just 7.4 per cent at the end of June. In fairness, the new target is broadly in line with peers such as Barclays or UBS. Messrs Fitschen and Jain plan to cut €4.5bn from the cost base. But it may take more than that to lift returns. The bank needs to do a better job of integrating Postbank, extract every ounce of value from the €135bn of assets being put into a new non-core operations division, and wring nearly €2bn of the cost savings from the investment banking division. The main challenge for the two men is to turn Deutsche into a happier and more efficient mix of commercial and investment banking. That is tricky for a bank that looks to be excessively angst-ridden about its twin pursuits. After all, its presence outside Germany is built almost entirely on its investment banking platform, on which the axe looks set to fall most heavily.