Deutsche Bank to Shrink Workforce by About 26,000 in Revamp

Deutsche Bank AG said it will shrink the workforce by about 26,000 people by 2018 as co-Chief Executive Officer John Cryan seeks to improve returns. The shares fell.

   The lender will cut about 9,000 jobs on a net basis, almost 10 percent of staff it expects to have at end of the year, and others will leave the company as businesses are sold, Deutsche Bank said on Thursday. The bank will close operations in 10 countries including Mexico, Norway and New Zealand, and move trading businesses from Brazil to global and regional hubs, and reduce the number of investment banking clients.

   Cryan, who took over from Anshu Jain in July, is under pressure to lower costs, boost capital buffers and reverse a share slump that has made Deutsche Bank the worst-valued stock among global lenders. His strategy for the firm that includes selling a consumer bank unit and shrinking the investment bank after some investors criticized a similar plan his predecessor proposed in April.

   "Deutsche Bank does not have a strategy problem,” Cryan told reporters in Frankfurt. “We know exactly where we want to go. However, Deutsche Bank has faced a grave problem for many years in implementing this strategy. In the last two decades, many strategies and targets were announced, but rarely were they consequently realized." The shares fell as much as 6.9 percent and were 5.5 percent lower at 25.96 euros as of 11:22 a.m. in Frankfurt.

Πηγή: bloomberg.com