New Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan came on board in July of this year, but it seemed like very little had changed at the beleaguered bank until now. That said, the giant European financial institution announced a major reorganization on Sunday, October 18th, as CEO Cryan begins his remake of the firm.
Of note, shares of Deutsche Bank climbed 2.5% to €26.61 per share in trading in Europe on Monday.
Deutsche Bank to split asset and wealth management divisions
The first part of the news for DB was that that two of its division chiefs, Colin Fan, who co-heads the investment bank, and Michele Faissola, who manages the asset and wealth management division, were resigning. Moreover, ex-CFO Stefan Krause will also leave, as will Stephan Leithner, the former chief of European business ex-UK and Germany.
Analysts note that most of these senior execs came to prominence under ex CEO Jain, and it seems they had to go in order to truly reshape the organizational structure at the bank. Liked several other global megabanks, DB’s investment bank is being divided into two as a part of the restructuring, with the corporate finance business merged with the global transaction banking wing to form a new unit. This new division is to be managed by Jeff Urwin, who had been the co-head of the investment bank with Fan.
In another step in the reorganization, the securities trading unit will be turned into a standalone business headed up by Garth Ritchie, the chief of Deutsche’s equities arm.
Finally, Deutsche Bank will also transfer its wealth management business away from its asset management division to its retail banking arm. After Faissola’s departure, Quintin Price will move up to lead the asset management division.
The goal of the plan is to simplify operations at the bank, which is facing waves of investigations by global regulators into allegations ranging from violating U.S. sanctions against Iran to rigging the Libor interest rate and foreign exchange markets to money laundering in Russia and elsewhere.
The four new divisions will focus on four types of clients: large businesses, institutional investors, asset managers and individual clients.
Deutsche Bank will also launch a new, independent digital bank to respond to the slew of new digital challenges across the financial sector.
