Chair of the Deutsche Bank against the change of strategy in an investment bank: FT

BERLIN (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank chairman Paul Achleitner told the Financial Times that the biggest German lender did not need to overhaul its investment bank after the failure. attempts to create a German champion with Commerzbank.

Achleitner defended Deutsche Bank's strategy after the merger talks with Commerzbank failed due to the risks of entering into an agreement, restructuring costs and capital requirements.

"Every leader has to constantly adapt to a changing market environment … but in this respect, we are not talking about strategy, we are talking about execution," Achleitner told the newspaper.

The idea of ​​merging with Commerzbank has now been dropped "once and for all," said Achleitner, adding that Deutsche Bank knew that Commerzbank could be taken over by a foreign lender.

Deutsche Bank has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis. It is trying to recover, but faces obstacles such as allegations of money laundering and failure of stress tests.

Recovery efforts will continue but no fundamental change in strategy is underway, Achleitner said.

"In particular, in a business like the capital markets, which is so volatile and so rapidly changing, permanent adjustments will be made," said Achleitner, who was seen as a supporter of the proposed merger with Commerzbank. He said that was his personal point of view.

The results released on Friday revealed a net income from the sprawling global investment bank of Deutsche, which accounts for more than half of the total revenues of the German bank and which relies heavily on its bond trading revenues, fell 13% to 3.3 billion euros in the first quarter.

Even powerful players such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs posted lower returns in bond trading, a field in which Deutsche was strong.

When asked if Deutsche Bank would have needed 10 billion euros of additional capital to finance the merger of Commerzbank, Achleitner told the Financial Times that this figure was "excessive".

Deutsche Bank has considered a major restructuring of its operations in the United States after the failure of the lender's stress tests. The US Federal Reserve announced this month that it will ease the capital requirements and stress tests of foreign bank subsidiaries.