All around the world
Boasting nearly 97,000 employees across more than 70 countries,
Deutsche Bank truly has a global footprint, with particularly
strength in Europe and its homeland of Germany. Deutsche
Bank's international presence encompasses retail banking branches,
corporate and investment banking and asset management. It's
made up of two main divisions: corporate and investment bank (CIB),
and private clients and asset management (PCAM). The whole group is
directed by a management board, which controls resource allocation,
accounting and disclosure, strategy and risk management.
Deutsche Bank's corporate and investment bank group oversees the
capital markets (origination, sales and trading), corporate
advisory, corporate lending and transaction banking
businesses. It also oversees mergers and acquisitions, and
gives general corporate finance advice primarily to global
corporations, financial institutions and sovereign entities.
Deutsche Bank's private clients and asset management group, or
PCAM, comprises two subdivisions: asset and wealth management
services, and private and business client services. Its asset
management services include traditional asset management and
alternative investments, the latter encompassing absolute-return
strategies and specialist real estate asset management. Its
client base includes retail clients and institutional investors
such as pension funds. The asset management group at
Deutsche Bank is one of the largest asset managers in the
world. The bank's private wealth management division caters
to high-net-worth individuals and families. It offers traditional
and alternative investments, risk management strategies, lending,
wealth transfer planning and philanthropic advisory, among others
services.
A complex history
In 1870, a private banker named Adelbert Delbruck and a
politician named Ludwig Bamberger opened Deutsche Bank in Berlin as
a specialist bank for foreign trade. By 1876, it had become
the largest bank in Germany and, by 1880, investments were
scattered across the globe, including in North and South America,
Eastern Asia and Turkey. Before the turn of the century, the
German giant had invested in projects like the Northern Pacific
Railroad in the U.S. and the Baghdad Railway.
After World War II, Deutsche Bank closed its offices in
Soviet-occupied areas and was scattered into 10 regional offices
while western Germany was under occupation. By 1957, the bank
had regained its footing as a unified Deutsche Bank AG with
headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. By 1986, the firm made its
first major bank acquisition outside of Germany with the purchase
of Banca d'America e d'Italia. Other acquisitions included
the Morgan Grenfell Group (1989), the U.S. Bankers Trust (1999),
the U.S. asset manager Scudder Investments (2002), the Swiss
private bank Rued Blass & Cie (2003) and the Russian investment
bank United Financial Group (2006).
DB's shares have been listed on the Berlin Stock Exchange since
the bank's birth in 1870. The bank also listed in Frankfurt
in 1880, on the Paris Stock Exchange (now Euronext) in 1974, on the
Brussels exchange (also now Euronext) in 1979, in Tokyo in 1989 and
on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001.