Deutsche Bank headquarters
Photo by Hannelore Foerster
Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of its global equities sales and trading business as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve its profitability.
Deutsche will also slash 18,000 jobs for a global headcount of around 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank aims to reduce costs by 6 billion euros to 17 billion euros in coming years.
The German bank announced plans to scale back investment banking, just two days after investment banking chief Garth Ritchie stepped down by “mutual agreement.”
All told, Deutsche expects its restructuring plan to cost 7.4 billion euros by the end of 2022.
The German bank also expects to report a net loss of 2.8 billion euros in the second quarter of 2019. It will release its second quarter results on July 25, 2019.
Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board met on Sunday to hash out the restructuring plan. The bank’s CEO, Christian Sewing, had broadcast “tough cutbacks” during a shareholders’ meeting in May.
The German lender once sought to compete with America’s big banks on Wall Street, but has been pummeled by scandals, investigations and massive fines stemming from the financial crisis and other issues in recent years.
Deutsche reached a $7.2 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department in January 2017 for misleading investors in the sale of mortgage-backed securities in the leadup to the financial crisis.
That came two years after the bank paid a $2.5 billion fine to U.S. and U.K. regulators for rigging interest rates as part of the Libor scandal.