(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG is considering 10,000 job cuts and retreating from equities markets across the world as part of a sweeping overhaul by Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing, people familiar with the matter said.
The cuts could represent about 10 percent of the Frankfurt-based bank’s workforce. Under Sewing’s predecessor, John Cryan, the bank had a previous target of 9,000 cuts by 2020, though the Frankfurt-based lender may have made less than a third of those cuts.
Sewing is accelerating a push to refocus the lender on its European home market and reverse a two-decade effort to compete head-to-head with the large Wall Street firms that dominate volatile securities trading. The future of the investment bank had been a key factor in the tumultuous management shakeup that saw him take over from Cryan last month.
The new target for job reductions was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. Germany’s biggest lender is expected to announce a range of restructuring measures to coincide with its annual shareholder meeting Thursday. The lender is working on sharply reducing its presence in the U.S. equities market and has also started cutting activity in the Central Europe, Middle East and Africa region, according to another person with knowledge of the matter.
Sewing has promised a large-scale restructuring of the investment bank to focus on areas that have more direct links with European companies. Deutsche Bank has also signaled that its scaling back U.S. rates sales and trading, its corporate finance business in the U.S. and Asia and reviewing global equities. Those measures, the bank said last month, will lead to a “significant reduction” in employees, without giving more information.
Shares Lower
Deutsche Bank closed 0.6 percent lower at 10.90 euros in Frankfurt on Wednesday. The stock has lost about 31 percent this year, making it the worst-performing major European bank.
There has been increasing evidence in recent weeks that the pace of job cuts is picking up, with the investment bank bearing the brunt. Deutsche Bank has said it will move to smaller premises in New York and will close its Houston office entirely due to a withdrawal from advisory services for the oil and gas sector.
A number of senior executives from the investment bank have left since Sewing first hinted at the restructuring to come when he discussed the bank’s first-quarter results in April. They included its top securities executive in the U.S., Barry Bausano, as well as global M&A head Thomas Piquemal.
Among others to leave the bank are London-based head of CEEMEA equity sales Darren Veenhuis, the people said. Veenhuis declined to comment to Bloomberg Wednesday. Pascal Moura, who runs equity research for the region from Dubai, is also leaving the bank, the people said. Moura didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
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