7000 employees to be sacked by Deutsche Bank

FRANKFURT: Deutsche Bank released a statement which said that it will cut down the number of staff globally from 97,000 to 90,000. This decision taken by bank is part of broad restructuring to reduce costs and restore profitability. In the statement released by bank it was said that the headcount would be cut by 25 per cent in its equities sales and trading business following a review of the business. These decisions were taken during the bank’s annual general meeting today.

The bank said that this reductions in the number of employees will decrease the leverage exposure by 100 billion euros ($117 billion) or 10 per cent and most of the cuts will take place this year.

Christian Sewing, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsche Bank said, “We remain committed to our Corporate & Investment Bank and our international presence – we are unwavering in that.”

“We are Europe’s alternative in the international financing and capital markets business. However, we must concentrate on what we truly do well,” he further added.

Shareholders said that they would ask the management of Deutsche Bank to speed up the recovery process after being fed up with weakening share price and falling revenues.

The bank which is suffering loss at the moment said that last month, after the unexpected management reshuffle, the target was to scale back its global investment bank and refocus on Europe and its home market after three consecutive years of losses. The investment bank has also signaled to cut the U.S. bond trading, equities and the business that serves hedge funds.

Notably, last month CEO John Cryan was replaced with Christian Sewing by Chairman of Deutsche Bank, Paul Achleitner. This decision came on the wake of complaints of the investors where they said that the bank was falling behind in executing a turnaround plan.

Currently, the bank is also under pressure as the credit ratings agencies are also keeping a close eye on it. Till date, the shares of Deutsche are almost down by 31 per cent.