Deutsche Bank chair Paul Achleitner faces barrage of investor questions over company’s ‘limited progress’
The chairman of Deutsche Bank may be feeling hot under the collar ahead of the group’s Thursday AGM, as shareholders are warning he will have some tough questions to answer.
Investors are demanding that Paul Achleitner address the lender’s lacklustre revenues and dwindling share price, which has been on a downward spiral since late last year.
Hermes EOS – the governance branch of asset manager Hermes – said Achleitner was “ultimately responsible for sustainable value creation” at the German bank, and questioned the high turnover of management and supervisory board members under his watch.
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“The continuing frequent departures of management board members raises the question of whether there are deficiencies in the supervisory board’s selection process of senior executives,” said Hans-Christoph Hirt, head of Hermes EOS.
“Furthermore, we ask whether the management board changes could simply mask an underlying problem, namely, the lack of an implementable strategy that creates value for shareholders and other stakeholders.”
Hermes pointed out that under Achleitner’s six-year tenure, Deutsche Bank has seen four chief executives or co-chief executives following the appointment of Christian Sewing in April.
Sewing’s predecessor John Cryan was unceremoniously ousted by Achleitner earlier this year, though he had initially been hand-picked by him.
A management board purge occurred shortly after Cryan’s appointment in 2015 and now, following the appointment of Sewing, deputy CEO Marcus Schenck and former chief operating officer Kim Hammonds have now also left or are leaving.
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Hermes argued that Achleitner was ultimately responsible for value creation since he is directly involved in strategy and senior appointments and can influence the direction of the company.
Yet Hirt claimed he had made “strategic U-turns, not least regarding both the bank’s retail and asset management businesses, and to date, a failure to move decisively on the troubled investment bank”.
Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board said in a statement that it “has never had, and still does not have, any doubts concerning Dr Achleitner’s comprehensive personal and professional skills and integrity”.
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