Yahoo Finance British-born boss of Deutsche Bank sacked after years of big losses
Germany’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, has sacked its UK-born boss after years of heavy losses.
John Cryan, who was installed as chief executive just three years ago, paid the price for failing to turn around the bank.
“Following a comprehensive analysis we came to the conclusion that we need a new execution dynamic in the leadership of our bank,” Paul Achleitner, the chairman of the company’s supervisory board, said in the statement.
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Co-deputy chief executive Christian Sewing will take over the role with immediate effect.
According to Reuters news agency, the search to replace Sunderland-born Cryan began after the bank reported an annual loss of €500m (£436m) at the end of February. That followed losses of €6.8bn in 2015 and €1.4bn in 2016.
Cryan had been trying to control costs by shutting scores of branches and cutting thousands of jobs.
In February, he said: “When I took up this post two and a half years ago, I aimed to bring Deutsche Bank to a position where it could achieve its full potential.
“It has always been clear that it would take more than two or three years.”
However, the supervisory board met at the weekend and decided his fate.
Achleitner said in the statement that Cryan had “laid the groundwork for a successful future”.
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New boss Sewing, 47, who has been with Deutsche Bank since 1989, issued a rallying call to staff saying the bank needs to quickly become profitable again.
He said: “In sharp contradiction though is how we missed some of our targets for costs and revenues. There may have been good reasons in some cases. But it was damaging for our bank.
“The new leadership team will not accept this anymore. We’ll have to take tough decisions and execute them.”
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Octavio Marenzi, who runs capital markets management consultancy Opimas, said there could be job losses in London as a result.
“It looks like the board of directors is capitulating on the investment banking front,” he said.
“This will hit Deutsche Bank’s London presence particularly hard, where the bulk of its investment banking activity is based.”
