The German bank’s supervisory board appointed Christian Sewing as its new CEO taking over from John Cryan following a much-anticipated conference call Sunday.
Sewing, who was co-president of the embattled lender in charge of private and retail-banking and regional CEO of Germany, assumes his role “with immediate effect,” while Cryan, who led the bank since 2015, will leave the bank by the end of April. Garth Ritchie and Karl von Rohr will be the new co-presidents, with Ritchie leading the investment bank, according to the Journal.
Marcus Schenck, who was formerly a co-president with Sewing was left out of the reshuffle because he “informed the Supervisory Board before Easter that he intends to leave the bank after this year’s Annual General Meeting,” according to bank statement to press.
The change of leadership comes following the loss of €5.6 billion in revenue from the bank’s core businesses between 2015 and 2017. This year, its first quarter revenues were expected to be €450 million less than anticipated.
Sewing’s appointment indicates to the Journal that the bank intends on focusing on providing financial services to European companies with less attention devoted to global markets.
Deutsche was the most active construction and non-construction lender in New York commercial real estate between October 2016 and September 2017, according to The Real Deal‘s analysis of commercial mortgages. The German lender poured $6.17 billion into non-construction mortgages across 51 deals and $2.67 billion in construction loans across nine deals.
Leading up to the board’s decision, Cryan disputed the “widespread rumors” of his ouster. He sent out a memo to the bank’s 98,000 employees about two weeks ago stating his commitment to the bank. [WSJ] — Erin Hudson