By Jack Ewing
The chief executive of Deutsche Bank apologized recently, in especially contrite terms, for the long list of misdeeds that tarnished the German lender’s reputation and cost it billions of euros in fines and settlements, adding that bonuses of top managers would be cut.
The unusually strong expression of humility, which came as the bank disclosed a quarterly loss of 1.9 billion euros, or $2 billion, reflected the tone that John Cryan, the chief executive, has tried to set since taking over in July 2015. His comments at a news conference signaled another step away from the aggressive risk-taking that was part of the lender’s attempt to keep pace with American investment banking titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
Speaking slowly and with a grave demeanor, Cryan expressed “deep regret for what happened.”
“We would like to apologize sincerely,” he said. “Serious errors were made.”
Under Cryan’s leadership, Deutsche Bank has followed European rivals like Credit Suisse in scaling back operations on Wall Street. But Cryan said that Deutsche Bank would nevertheless retain a strong presence in the United States.
“We cannot be the international bank we need to be and want to be unless we can deal with the largest economy in the world,” he said.
Deutsche Bank’s top managers will take “substantial” cuts in their bonuses for 2016, Cryan said, declining to give exact figures. It would be inappropriate, he added, for executives to receive large bonuses when the bank was not paying a dividend to shareholders and was laying off thousands of workers. The €1.9-billion loss in the last three months of 2016 compared with a loss of €2.1 billion during the quarter a year earlier.
The lender has been hiring more internal overseers to try to prevent the behavior that eventually led to a $7.2-billion settlement with the US Justice Department related to the bank’s sale of toxic mortgage securities. Deutsche Bank has also had to deal with accusations that it colluded with other banks to manipulate benchmark interest rates and helped wealthy Russians to launder $10 billion.
© 2017 The New York Times
Image credits: Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images