Deutsche brings it all back home
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| “We have continued to generate wonderful results in Germany. But the fact is that Germany is a relatively small market in a global context” |
DEUTSCHE BANK GROUP executive committee member Jürgen Fitschen hardly has the cushiest job in Germany’s financial sector. As chairman since 2004 of Deutsche’s new German management committee, he shoulders the weighty responsibility of developing the bank’s strategy in its domestic market. It is a delicate mandate for two reasons. The first is that it has as much to do with diplomacy and public relations as with banking, given the severe criticism of Deutsche’s senior management made by domestic commentators who question the bank’s emphasis on international expansion.
The critics have included Reinhard Butikofer, leader of the Green Party, who has described Deutsche Bank’s Swiss chief executive Josef Ackermann’s programme of domestic job cuts as “cynical” and “incomprehensible”. Certain sections of the German media have picked up the refrain, vilifying Deutsche for axeing thousands of local jobs while racking up record revenues and profits. To the more fiercely patriotic of its critics, Deutsche has transformed itself into an organization whose language is English and business procedures American.