Thousands of Deutsche Bank jobs likely to go in London

  • ITV News Business Editor Joel Hill on what Deutsche Bank's plans mean for jobs in London

Deutsche Bank is a German bank with global ambitions, or at least it was.

After years of struggling to make money, Deutsche Bank is cutting costs by hacking back the size of investment banking business and offloading billions of Euros of assets it finds itself unable to sell to a "bad bank".

One fifth of Deutsche Bank's global workforce will go over the next three years.

Deutsche won't say how many of its 8,000 UK staff will be affected by the cuts but several thousand jobs are likely to go here because London is the global headquarters of the bank's "Equity Sales & Trading" business: translation - buying and selling shares, which is precisely the business Deutsche Banks wants out of.

Deutsche Bank was one of a number of European banks decided to try to take on the global investment banking giants of Wall St that in the late 1980s and 90s.

One fifth of the bank's global workforce will go. Credit: PA

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan had showed there was money to be made in stockbroking, helping companies and governments raise, buy and sell debt, and advising businesses on mergers and acquisitions and Deutsche Bank wanted a piece of the action.

The early signs were encouraging. At one stage, before the financial crisis, around 90% of Deutsche Bank's profits were being generated by its investment bank and there was talk of the bank relocating to London.

Since 2008 Deutsche Bank has struggled to be profitable. The bank's share price has slumped, shareholders complain that the bank is too complex and has over-reached.

The Deutsche Bank, Green Towers Building in Frankfurt, Germany. Credit: PA

Under pressure and under new management, the new chief executive has decided on a radical restructuring. Christian Sewing, says Deutsche Bank is "returning to our roots and to what once made us one of the leading banks in the world".

Deutsche Bank is scaling back, retreating to Frankfurt and focussing on the simple stuff: savings and loans to households and business. Downsizing will cost the banks 7.4bn Euros over the next three years.

Two years ago Deutsche Bank signed a lease for a new London headquarters with Landsec. The bank now finds itself with 469,000 square feet in the City of London that it will struggle to fill.