Deutsche Bank's crisis investments drive bumper Q1

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE> posted its second-best ever net profit as crisis-era investments at the investment bank and deals to expand its retail and wealth management operations helped the lender outperform peers.

Germany's biggest lender said on Thursday it posted a quarterly net profit of 2.1 billion euros ($3.1 billion), well above the 1.82 billion euros average estimate in a Reuters poll.

The figure was just shy of the record 2.132 billion euros seen in first quarter of 2007, and 18 percent more than in the first three months of last year.

The first-quarter earnings reflect market share gains at the investment bank as well as increased revenue from deals struck after the financial crisis, including the purchase of retail lender Postbank and wealth manager Sal. Oppenheim.

Deutsche Bank said it remains confident it can deliver its target of 10 billion euros pretax profit in 2011.

The investment bank delivered 2.6 billion euros of a total 3 billion euros pretax profit in the first quarter. While it still accounted for the lion's share of earnings, it was just below the year-earlier level of 2.7 billion.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor)

($1=.6817 Euro)