Deutsche Bank stock gains on reports of new CEO search

Shares in Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank gained Tuesday after a newspaper reported that the troubled financial giant was seeking a new chief executive as it struggles to right itself.

The stock added 1.0 percent to trade at 11.30 euros ($14.06) by 0830 GMT, after British newspaper The Times reported chairman Paul Achleitner had been sounding out senior industry figures to take over from John Cryan, at the helm since 2015.

“It is quite clear the relationship is broken between the chief executive and the chairman,” a senior source told the paper.

A spokesman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the report.

According to his contract, Cryan is slated to stay on until May 2020.

But The Times said Deutsche has approached Goldman Sachs vice-president Richard Gnodde — unsuccessfully — and has considered offering the top job to Unicredit chief Jean-Pierre Mustier or Standard Chartered boss Bill Winters.

Cryan has launched the bank on a massive restructuring at the same time as trying to clear up the legacy of its massive global expansion in the years before the financial crisis, which has cost Deutsche billions in fines and compensation.

But investors have grown impatient, with shares in Frankfurt-based Deutsche losing almost a third of their value since the start of the year.

Earlier this month the bank reported it had made a higher loss than initially thought in 2017, at 751 million euros — its third annual loss in a row.

It has blamed the red figures on President Donald Trump’s corporate tax reforms in the United States, which it said hit it with a one-off loss.

Meanwhile the partial stock market flotation of its highly-regarded asset management unit DWS, which raised around 1.4 billion euros last week, was overshadowed when finance director James von Moltke warned of headwinds for the struggling investment banking division.

In a further sign of internal tensions, chief operating officer Kim Hammonds called the bank “dysfunctional” according to a report from German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.