Deutsche Bank needs more responsible people on board; says analyst
Shares in Deutsche Bank jumped on Friday on the news of a $7.2 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice on the mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities during the global financial crisis, but analysts have warned that the bank needs more money and the right people on board.
“CEO John Cryan may think he did everything right and Santa Claus came especially early to him today and to the board members. But that is my biggest my concern more than ever,” Stefan Mueller, chief executive officer of DGWA told CNBC Friday.
Mueller further added that the bank needs more money and also get more responsible people on board.
“I personally think that they need to get some people off board as well because I do not think that the responsible people within Deutsche Bank have ever realized that there are huge challenges in the banking sector in general, regulations and all these things,” Mueller said.
The right path?
While some analysts have applauded John Cryan’s role in leading the bank towards a sustainable model, Mueller thinks the bank is not on the right path.
“They still think that it is the right way but it is the only bank that is following that path and the only bank that has these issues so there could be something wrong in the management level of Deutsche Bank.”
Critics across the board have also pointed to the management reshuffle and movement of personnel as one of the reasons for the bank’s poor performance. Last year saw a change in Deutsche Bank’s senior management team after Co-Chairmen Anshu Jain and Jurgen Fitschen stepped down, giving way to John Cryan, the former UBS boss, as the new CEO.
Anshu Jain’s decision to step down was followed by a number of high profile exits from the bank’s key operations including Zar Amrolia, who was the bank’s head of fixed-income and currencies business, Colin Fan, the bank’s co-head of the investment bank and Michele Faissola, the head of the asset and wealth management business.
While the new CEO, who had been part of the Deutsche Bank supervisory board since 2013, is said to have brought changes to the bank’s overall strategy, investors remain concerned about the state of the bank especially with the massive fine from the DOJ that is nearly half the size of the bank’s market cap.
Although a number of reports have pointed to the bank in a transition phase ever since the new management took over, sources told CNBC in July this year that fixed income traders were not very happy with the appointment of Garth Ritchie, an equities specialist, as the new head of global markets.
Ritchie was earlier the head of equities at Deutsche Bank and took over in December 2008. The bank’s equities business was down nearly 60 percent in terms of revenues in the first nine months of 2008 but since then Ritchie is said to have redesigned the business and changed it from a proprietary shop to a client-facing shop.
Source: CNBC
