Deutsche Bank has moved closer to its goal of boosting earnings through the sale of more than 10% of its volatile private equity assets to Axa Private Equity.

The private equity firm, which is part of the French insurer Axa, cherry-picked a portfolio of commitments worth $382m (€300m) Deutsche had made to 21 unnamed US buy-out funds. Axa will pay $120m to Deutsche at a discount to the value already invested.