By Eyk Henning 

FRANKFURT--Deutsche Bank AG's incoming co-Chief Executive John Cryan on Wednesday postponed a detailed presentation of the giant German lender's new strategy until the end of October, but said he remains committed to trimming its operations.

In a letter to staff posted on the bank's website, he said: "I am not going to tell you that all will be sweetness and light in the coming months," setting the stage for potentially deep staff cuts and an increased focus on changing the business's corporate culture.

The former UBS finance chief starts Wednesday as co-CEO alongside Jürgen Fitschen. He replaces Anshu Jain who stepped down last month amid criticism from regulators and investors. Mr. Jain's departure was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Cryan on Wednesday stressed his commitment to the cornerstone of a new strategy announced by the bank in April, which included plans to shed its Postbank AG retail banking business, but said he would take the summer and fall to work out how to cut costs and other details of the plan.

The plan aimed to streamline the at-times unwieldy German lender and to boost its profitability, but stopped short of a radical plan to break up its investment banking and retail operations into separate companies.

Investors were keenly awaiting Mr. Cryan's take on the bank's new strategy that some complained lacked detail when it was first announced. His presentation had been slated to happen by the end of this month.

Deutsche Bank has trailed rivals in terms of profitability and share price since Mr. Jain and Mr. Fitschen took the helm in mid-2012, as they grappled with a series of costly lawsuits and attempted to lower costs.

Addressing staff on his first day on the job, Mr. Cryan conceded that the reputation of Germany's largest lender has been "damaged by instances of serious misconduct." The resulting heavy fines for settling lawsuits "have strained our capital...and will likely continue to do so for some time," he said.

Revamping the bank's corporate culture was deemed necessary after Deutsche Bank shelled out around EUR9 billion ($10.04 billion) over the past three years to settle lawsuits and regulatory investigations, most of which stem from the investment bank Mr. Jain once ran. Deutsche Bank paid a record $2.5 billion fine to settle U.K. and U.S. investigations into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rates, or Libor.

One of Mr. Cryan's main tasks will be to mitigate the bank's contentious relations with regulators. A person familiar with conversations between Deutsche Bank and the German banking regulator, BaFin, said the agency has been critical of Mr. Jain, pointing to a recent confidential report on attempts by Deutsche Bank traders to manipulate Libor. Although the report said no executives were involved in the scandal, BaFin noted that Mr. Jain was head of the investment bank and therefore "ultimately responsible for the missteps in the eyes of BaFin," the Journal reported previously.

Deutsche Bank officials have said repeatedly that there was no pressure from regulators on Mr. Jain to step down. BaFin's top supervisor, Felix Hufeld, on Monday declined to say if the watchdog pressured Mr. Jain to leave. Asked how BaFin encourages a management change in general, Mr. Hufeld said it "informally communicates [that to a bank]. And then we wait and see what happens."

He also said BaFin wished Mr. Cryan well, adding that Deutsche Bank has to improve its internal processes and culture.

Also high on Mr. Cryan's priority list now is making deep cost cuts to close the bank's profitability gap with rivals. Mr. Cryan, 54, is expected to accelerate EUR3.5 billion ($3.9 billion) in announced cost cuts the bank had said it wanted to achieve by 2020.

Hans Bentzien

contributed to this article.

Write to Eyk Henning at eyk.henning@wsj.com and Sarah Sloat at sarah.sloat@wsj.com

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