The organization of Deutsche
Deutsche Bank is organized into three divisions: the Corporate
and Investment Bank (CIB), Private Clients and Asset Management
(PCAM), and Corporate Investments. The whole group is directed by a
management board, which controls resource allocation, accounting
and disclosure, strategy and risk management.
Deutsche Bank's CIB group oversees the firm's capital markets
business, including the origination, sales and trading of capital
markets products, in tandem with the bank's corporate advisory,
corporate lending and transaction banking businesses. It also
oversees mergers and acquisitions and gives general corporate
finance advice primarily for global corporations, financial
institutions, and sovereign and multinational organizations.
Deutsche Bank's PCAM group 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.
With approximately USD$818 billion in assets under management
globally as of March 30, 2008, 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. In 2007, the private wealth management unit increased
assets by 3 percent, ending the year with EUR 194 billion.
The smallest of the three divisions, the Corporate Investments
group, manages Deutsche's own industrial and other holdings, real
estate assets, private equity investments and venture capital
holdings. This division was at the center of a comprehensive
streamlining plan in 2005; non-core assets were sold off, and the
division's old three-part structure was consolidated into a single
operating unit.
The German giant
Germany's biggest bank first opened its doors in Berlin in 1870,
operating under a very specific motto: "to transact banking
business of all kinds, in particular to promote and facilitate
trade relations between Germany, other European countries and
overseas markets." In 1872 the bank opened its first foreign
branches in Shanghai and in Yokohama, Japan. By 1880, the bank was
engaging in industrial investment activities, making deals across
borders in Asia, Turkey and the Americas, and in 1929, it merged
with Disconto-Gesellschaft, the biggest merger in German banking
history. World War II nearly destroyed Germany's financial services
industry; Deutsche Bank was shut down by occupying Soviet forces in
1945. Its West Berlin operations were decentralized into 10
regional institutions, which were then combined into three
joint-stock companies. In 1957, these three companies reunited,
creating Deutsche Bank AG.
In the decades that followed, Deutsche grew rapidly, adding
retail banking services and international offices in New York,
Paris, Tokyo, London and Moscow. Its first U.S. purchase came in
1999, with the acquisition of Bankers Trust. Two years later,
Deutsche made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange; in
2002, it bought U.S. asset manager Scudder Investments. These days,
it's casting its net even wider. In 2006, Deutsche completed the
acquisition of Russian investment bank United Financial Group.
Some of Deutsche Bank's recent growth has been tempered by a few
setbacks. During 2006, Deutsche added more than 5,400 people,
expanding its presence in North America, Latin America, the Middle
East, Central and Eastern Europe, and Asia--especially in India and
China. In the Asia Pacific region, the bank has over 54 offices in
17 financial markets. But in January 2008, the firm announced
employee job cuts that would reach nearly every department--and all
around the globe. The first wave of cutbacks came within the month,
when the bank slashed about 300 positions within its global markets
unit. Over the course of the first quarter of 2008, those numbers
inflated to 1,000 global job reductions, mostly in mortgage banking
areas. In the meantime, the firm has said that additional
reductions are not planned.
During 2007, Deutsche Bank's Asia Pacific workforce expanded
from 10,800 to more than 15,100 -- a 40 percent increase -- as
another 4,000 jobs were created in the region. Globally, almost
half of the 9,400-employee increase at Deutsche Bank in 2007 was
added in the Asia Pacific region. Despite continued uncertainty in
the industry globally, Deutsche Bank continues to expand in the
region.