Perpetual chief executive officer Bernard Reilly says the sale of the wealth management unit and a doubling of its cost-cutting plans will bring its debt levels back below the company’s target after it rejected a revised $2.2 billion from private equity fund KKR last weekend.

On Thursday, the financial services conglomerate reported an underlying net profit after tax of $100.5 million for the half-year that was slightly below market expectations, which analysts said was due to a higher-than-expected tax rate.