Deutsche Bank Thursday said it will eliminate 3,500 jobs as it reported $6.1 billion in before-tax profit and a $1.7 billion capital distribution to shareholders. File photo by Wallace Woon/EPA-EFE
Feb. 1 (UPI) — Deutsche Bank Thursday said it will eliminate 3,500 jobs as it reported a before-tax profit of $6.2 billion.
The German investment bank said the job cuts are part of a $2.7 billion “operational efficiency program and will largely impact “non-client-facing areas.”
While not addressing the job losses directly, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said in a message that “cost discipline” was a priority for the bank as it seeks to protect itself from “external influences in an uncertain environment.”
“That’s why we implemented further efficiency measures in 2023, the impact of which we expect to start seeing this year,” he said. “We are at an inflection point from which we can start reducing our costs again. We will only succeed, though, if we make the cost discipline an intrinsic part of how we do business — every day.”
While cutting those jobs the bank said it will pay $1.7 billion to shareholders in capital distributions.
“One area where we also want to be more ambitious is in our promise to shareholders. We have always said that we want to reward their loyalty and, in line with that, we announced today that we have received approval to buy back shares worth another $730.5 million,” Sewing said in a statement. “We also want dividends to grow, too. Our ambition is to be able to pay a dividend of one euro per share for the financial year 2025 — assuming we meet our financial targets and, as planned, our capital distribution goal of 50%.”
In addition to the layoffs, the efficiency program savings includes “infrastructure and technology efficiencies, including application de-commissioning and operating model improvements; optimization of the bank’s platform in Germany; and front-to-back process redesign, including simplified workflows and automation.”
The effort to protect the bank from external factors comes after Deutsche Bank shares fell 13% in March as it became ensnarled in a global banking crisis due to use of credit default swaps. That happened as Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse needed financial rescue while Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed in the United States.
In May, Deutsche Bank also paid $75 million to victims of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. The payment settled a lawsuit alleging the bank enabled and benefitted from Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls.
Sewing said he looks forward to continuing to write the banks’ “success story.”
“In these current times of social polarization, where the focus is all too often on doom and gloom but not enough is being done to improve things, it is something that should lift our spirits,” he wrote.
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