Frankfurt am Main (AFP) – Investors welcomed the arrival of a new CEO at the head of troubled German lender Deutsche Bank Monday, lifting its stock price sharply as the market opened.
Shares in Deutsche Bank added 3.0 percent to trade at 11.70 euros ($14.36) by 0945 local time (0745 GMT), making the bank the strongest performer in the DAX index of leading German shares.
New boss Christian Sewing replaces British chief executive John Cryan, who had led the bank since 2016, and investors hope the change of boss will bring with it a change of strategy.
While Cryan extricated Deutsche from some of its knottiest legal entanglements following the financial crisis, he did not succeed in guiding the lender back to profitability.
Sewing, a veteran of the retail banking arm, warned in a letter to employees seen by business newspaper Handelsblatt that he would “make and implement hard decisions”, looking above all to slash costs and give Deutsche back its “hunter mindset”.
He promised “further changes” to the structure of the bank in a “difficult market environment” that would see it withdraw from areas where it is not making big enough profits.
Observers will above all be eyeing Sewing’s plans for the investment banking division, whose 40,000 employees account for the biggest chunk of Deutsche’s revenues.
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