Frankfurt: Deutsche Bank's co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen have offered to resign, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday, just over two weeks after the bank gave Jain more power in a move criticised by some investors and staff.
The supervisory board has convened an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the bank's leadership, the source said. It was expected to appoint John Cryan, the former chief financial officer of UBS, to replace Jain, Britain's Financial Times newspaper reported. Deutsche Bank has struggled to restore an image tarnished by a raft of regulatory and legal problems which include probes into alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates, mis-selling of derivatives, tax evasion and money laundering.
In a last ditch effort to restore confidence in its leadership, the German lender presented a radical management shakeup on May 21, only to face calls for Jain to resign from staff situated in its own headquarters in Frankfurt.
Some investors demanded more changes to restore confidence. Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the resignation offers. Jain did not respond to a message left on his phone. Supervisory board chairman Paul Achleitner could not be reached for comment. Reached by phone, Marcus Schenck, the company's chief financial officer said, "I will not comment on anything." Jain landed the top spot at Deutsche in 2012 after the investment banking division he ran consistently delivered up to 85 percent of group profit and frequently outperformed peers.
But tougher regulatory requirements and litigation, including a $2.5 billion fine to settle allegations that Deutsche traders rigged benchmark interest rates, took the shine off a division often referred to internally as "Anshu's army".
Making Jain directly responsible for cutting Deutsche Bank's costs by 4.7 billion euros ($5.2 billion), selling its Postbank retail business and paring back its investment bank put huge pressure on the former trader. Fitschen was hired as co-CEO to maintain the bank's German profile but his ability to sell the group's strategy to domestic shareholders has been impaired by his own legal problems.
He is required to appear every week at a criminal court in Munich to defend himself against allegations that he misled investigators in a dispute with the heirs of the Kirch media empire.
