Deutsche Bank Warns of Profit Miss, Job Cuts

Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) has warned that it will miss its profit targets for this full year and also unveiled plans to cut 500 jobs.

The company -- the biggest bank in Germany -- also said it will take an impairment charge of about $330-million in connection with its holdings of Greek government debt.

Bank shares are plunging more than 4.2 percent in Frankfurt trading, although they were down almost 9 percent earlier in the session.

Earlier, DB had expected to record profits of 10-billion euros ($13.2-billion) for the year.

Speaking at an investors’ conference in London, DB's chief executive, Josef Ackermann, said there has been a "significant and unabated slowdown in client activity,” in connection with the Eurozone debt malaise.

“We have a strong and diverse client focus franchise, but it's relatively exposed to a slowdown in Europe,” he said.

“Europe was, of course, not particularly successful in the last few months.”

DB said the job cuts will hit its corporate banking and securities unit in the fourth quarter and the first three months of next year.
Most of the job losses will be outside its base in Germany.

Ackerman also warned that the bank’s total staffing will be 11 percent lower in 2012 than in 2010.

Other major European banks, including Switzerland’s UBS AG and Britain’s Barclays PLC have already slashed jobs in the investment banking arena is response to the Greek debt crisis that is roiling through the continent.

Konrad Becker, a Munich-based analyst at Merck Finck & Co., told Bloomberg: “Market conditions simply didn't allow [DB] to reach the [profit] target. If market conditions deteriorate further, more reductions could follow.”

However, Ackermann also assured that banking activity outside of the sovereign debt realm remained “robust.”

"We are confident that the classic banking businesses -- private clients, asset management and global transaction banking - as a whole will deliver their best pre-tax profit ever," he said.