FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The United States Federal Reserve last year designated Deutsche Bank AG's U.S. operations to be in "troubled condition", The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The Fed's assessment has not been previously been made public, it said, sending shares in the German lender down 5.5 percent by 1317 GMT, underperforming the German blue-chip DAX index, which was trading 0.6 percent lower.
The "troubled condition" status is one of the lowest designations employed by the Fed, The WSJ said.
The Fed downgrade caused the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to put Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, on its list of "Problem Banks", it said.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the WSJ report and on its relations with the Fed, but said it was working to remedy weaknesses in its U.S. business identified by regulators.
It said in a statement that despite potential weaknesses in parts of its United States operations, the parent Deutsche Bank AG remained well capitalised and had adequate liquidity reserves.
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(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Additional reporting by Kathrin Jones; Editing by Maria Sheahan)