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Deutsche Bank AG co-Chief Executive Officer Anshu Jain faces a growing chorus of discontent.
The works council at the bank's Frankfurt headquarters distributed one-page flyers this week titled 'Wind of Change? Wind of Jain?' that blame management for low employee morale. The employees instead voiced their support for departing management board member Rainer Neske.
"Losing a member of the management board that's been called 'the honest face of Deutsche Bank' in a power struggle between investment bank and universal bank, between London and Frankfurt, is a disastrous signal internally and externally," says the flyer, seen by Bloomberg.
Jain, 52, and co-CEO Juergen Fitschen, 66, are under pressure to persuade investors that their strategic plan announced last month will succeed after Germany's biggest bank failed to meet previous targets. The bank's managers received the lowest approval from shareholders in at least a decade at the annual investor meeting last week. They're counting on additional annual cost cuts, scaling back the securities unit and selling the Postbank consumer business to revive profit.
"Deutsche is appointing new leadership to make quicker and more painful decisions," Peter Hahn, a senior lecturer at Cass Business School, said by e-mail. "You wouldn't expect the current employees to like it."
Job cuts
Christian Sewing, who was responsible for legal affairs, is replacing Neske as head of private and business clients in a board reorganisation announced last week, while Jain was given direct oversight of the strategic review.
"There's some concern among employees now that Neske's gone, because he steered the private customers business in a stable manner and was always on the side of private customers in the management board," said Stefan Bongardt, an analyst at Independent Research GmbH in Frankfurt, who has a hold recommendation on the stock. Reductions to the private client business as part of Deutsche Bank's new strategy "inevitably mean a large reduction of staff."
Deutsche Bank has said it will provide further details of the strategic review over coming weeks.
The employee discontent "doesn't reflect the opinion of all works councils of our bank," Alfred Herling, head of Deutsche Bank's group works council and deputy chairman of the supervisory board, said in an e-mailed statement.
Deutsche Bank, which employs about 98,600 people, has more than 40 works councils across the firm.
Handelsblatt reported the contents of the flyer Thursday.
