Deutsche Bank AG

Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1870 and grew through multiple acquisitions, including Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929 (as a consequence of which it was known from 1929 to 1937 as Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft or "DeDi-Bank"), Bankers Trust in 1998, and Deutsche Postbank in 2010.

As of 2018, the bank's network spanned 58 countries with a large presence in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. As of 2021, Deutsche Bank was the 21st largest bank in the world by total assets and 93rd in the world by market capitalization. It is a component of the DAX stock market index, and often referred to as the largest German banking institution even though the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe comes well ahead in terms of combined assets. Deutsche Bank has been designated as a global systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board since 2011.

Deutsche Bank is a universal bank with four major divisions: Investment Bank, Corporate Bank, Private Bank and Asset Management (DWS). Its investment banking operations often command substantial deal flow.

According to the ''New Yorker'', Deutsche Bank has long had an "abject" reputation among major banks, as it has been involved in major scandals across different issue areas.

History

1870–1919

Deutsche Bank was founded on 1870 in Berlin as a specialist bank for financing foreign trade and promoting German exports. It subsequently played a large part in developing Germany's financial services industry, as its business model focused on providing finance to industrial customers. The bank's statute was adopted on 22 January 1870, and on 10 March 1870 the Prussian government granted it a banking license. The statute laid great stress on foreign business:

Three of the founders were Georg Siemens, whose father's cousin had founded Siemens and Halske; Adelbert Delbrück and Ludwig Bamberger. Prior to the founding of Deutsche Bank, German importers and exporters were dependent upon British and French banking institutions in the world markets—a serious handicap in that German bills were almost unknown in international commerce, generally disliked and subject to a higher rate of a discount than English or French bills.

Founding members

* Hermann Zwicker (Bankhaus Gebr. Schickler, Berlin)
* Anton Adelssen (Bankhaus Adelssen & Co., Berlin)
* Adelbert Delbrück (Bankhaus Delbrück, Leo & Co.)
* Heinrich von Hardt (Hardt & Co., Berlin, New York)
* Ludwig Bamberger (politician, former chairman of Bischoffsheim, Goldschmidt & Co)
* Victor Freiherr von Magnus (Bankhaus F. Mart Magnus)
* (Bankhaus Deichmann & Co., Cologne)
* Gustav Kutter (Bankhaus Gebrüder Sulzbach, Frankfurt)
* Gustav Müller (Württembergische Vereinsbank, Stuttgart)

First directors

* Wilhelm Platenius, Georg Siemens and Hermann Wallich

The bank's first domestic branches, inaugurated in 1871 and 1872, were opened in Bremen and Hamburg. Its first oversea-offices opened in Shanghai in 1872 and London in 1873 followed by South American offices between 1874 and 1886. The branch opening in London, after one failure and another partially successful attempt, was a prime necessity for the establishment of credit for the German trade in what was then the world's money center.

Major projects in the early years of the bank included the Northern Pacific Railroad in the US and the Baghdad Railway (1888). In Germany, the bank was instrumental in the financing of bond offerings of steel company Krupp (1879) and introduced the chemical company Bayer to the Berlin stock market.

The second half of the 1890s saw the beginning of a new period of expansion at Deutsche Bank. The bank formed alliances with large regional banks, giving itself an entry into Germany's main industrial regions. Joint ventures were symptomatic of the concentration then under way in the German banking industry. For Deutsche Bank, domestic branches of its own were still something of a rarity at the time; the Frankfurt branch dated from 1886 and the Munich branch from 1892, while further branches were established in Dresden and Leipzig in 1901.

In addition, the bank rapidly perceived the value of specialist institutions for the promotion of foreign business. Gentle pressure from the Foreign Ministry played a part in the establishment of Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank in 1886 and the stake taken in the newly established Deutsch-Asiatische Bank three years later, but the success of those companies showed that their existence made sound commercial sense.

1919–1933

In 1919, the bank purchased the state's share of Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa). In 1926, the bank assisted in the merger of Daimler and Benz.

The bank merged with other local banks in 1929 to create Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft. In 1937, the company name changed back to Deutsche Bank.

1933–1945

After Adolf Hitler came to power, instituting the Third Reich, Deutsche Bank dismissed its three Jewish board members in 1933. In subsequent years, Deutsche Bank took part in the aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses, provided the owners of “aryanized” businesses were in the know about their Jewish status beforehand; according to its own historians, the bank was involved in 363 such confiscations by November 1938. In 1938, German bank Mendelssohn & Co. was acquired. During the war, Deutsche Bank incorporated other banks that fell into German hands during the occupation of Eastern Europe. Deutsche Bank provided banking facilities for the Gestapo and loaned the funds used to build the Auschwitz camp and the nearby IG Farben facilities.

During World War II, Deutsche Bank became responsible for managing the Bohemian Union Bank in Prague, with branches in the Protectorate and in Slovakia, the Bankverein in Yugoslavia (which has now been divided into two financial corporations, one in Serbia and one in Croatia), the Albert de Barry Bank in Amsterdam, the National Bank of Greece in Athens, the Creditanstalt-Bankverein in Austria and Hungary, the Deutsch-Bulgarische Kreditbank in Bulgaria, and Banca Comercială Română ''(The Romanian Commercial Bank)'' in Bucharest. It also maintained a branch in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 1999, Deutsche Bank confirmed officially that it had been involved in the Auschwitz camp. In December 1999, Deutsche, along with other major German companies, contributed to a US$5.2 billion compensation fund following lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors; U.S. officials had threatened to block Deutsche Bank's $10 billion purchase of Bankers Trust, a major American bank, if it did not contribute to the fund. The history of Deutsche Bank during the Second World War has since been documented by independent historians commissioned by the Bank.

Post-World War II

Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the Allied authorities, in 1948, ordered Deutsche Bank's break-up into regional banks. These regional banks were later consolidated into three major banks in 1952: Norddeutsche Bank AG; Süddeutsche Bank AG; and Rheinisch-Westfälische Bank AG. In 1957, these three banks merged to form Deutsche Bank AG with its headquarters in Frankfurt.

In 1959, the bank entered retail banking by introducing small personal loans. In the 1970s, the bank pushed ahead with international expansion, opening new offices in new locations, such as Milan (1977), Moscow, London, Paris, and Tokyo. In the 1980s, this continued when the bank paid U$603 million in 1986 to acquire Banca d'America e d'Italia.

In 1972, the bank established its ''Fiduciary Services Division'' which provides support to its private wealth division.

At 8:30 am on 30 November 1989, Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of Deutsche Bank, was killed when a car that he was in exploded while he was traveling in the Frankfurt suburb of Bad Homburg. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the blast.

In 1989, the first steps towards creating a significant investment-banking presence were taken with the acquisition of Morgan, Grenfell & Co., a UK-based investment bank which was renamed Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in 1994. In 1995 to greatly expand into international investments and money management, Deutsche Bank hired Edson Mitchell, a risk specialist from Merrill Lynch, who hired two other former Merrill Lynch risk specialists Anshu Jain and William S. Broeksmit.Deutsche Bank Flew and Fell. Some Paid a High Price.
/ref> By the mid-1990s, the buildup of a capital-markets operation had got underway with the arrival of a number of high-profile figures from major competitors. Ten years after the acquisition of Morgan Grenfell, the US firm Bankers Trust was added. Bankers Trust suffered losses during the 1998 Russian financial crisis since it had a large position in Russian government bonds, but avoided financial collapse by being acquired by Deutsche Bank for $10 billion in November 1998. On 4 June 1999, Deutsche Bank merged its Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Bankers Trust to became Deutsche Asset Management (DAM) with Robert Smith as the CEO. This made Deutsche Bank the fourth-largest money management firm in the world after UBS, Fidelity Investments, and the Japanese post office's life insurance fund. At the time, Deutsche Bank owned a 12% stake in DaimlerChrysler but United States banking laws prohibit banks from owning industrial companies, so Deutsche Bank received an exception to this prohibition through 1978 legislation from Congress.

Deutsche continued to build up its presence in Italy with the acquisition in 1993 of Banca Popolare di Lecco from Banca Popolare di Novara for about $476 million. In 1999, it acquired a minority interest in Cassa di Risparmio di Asti.

21st century

In the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks the Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan, formerly Bankers Trust Plaza, was heavily damaged by the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Demolition work on the 39-story building continued for nearly a decade, and was completed in early 2011.

In October 2001, Deutsche Bank was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This was the first NYSE listing after interruption due to 11 September attacks. The following year, Josef Ackermann became CEO of Deutsche Bank and served as CEO until 2012 when he became involved with the Bank of Cyprus. Then, beginning in 2002, Deutsche Bank strengthened its U.S. presence when it purchased Scudder Investments. Meanwhile, in Europe, Deutsche Bank increased its private-banking business by acquiring Rued Blass & Cie (2002) and the Russian investment bank United Financial Group (2005) founded by the United States banker Charles Ryan and the Russian official Boris Fyodorov which followed Anshu Jain's aggressive expansion to gain strong relationships with state partners in Russia. Jain persuaded Ryan to remain with Deutsche Bank at its new Russian offices and later, in April 2007, sent the president and chairman of the management board of VTB Bank Andrey Kostin's son Andrey to Deutsche Bank's Moscow office.) in the Yaroslavl region of Russia. He was not wearing a helmet. Later, in 2008, to establish VTB Capital, numerous bankers from Deutsche Bank's Moscow office were hired by VTB Capital. In Germany, further acquisitions of Norisbank, Berliner Bank and Deutsche Postbank strengthened Deutsche Bank's retail offering in its home market. This series of acquisitions was closely aligned with the bank's strategy of bolt-on acquisitions in preference to so-called "transformational" mergers. These formed part of an overall growth strategy that also targeted a sustainable 25% return on equity, something the bank achieved in 2005.

On 1 October 2003, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank entered into a payment transaction agreement with Postbank to have Postbank process payments as the clearing center for the three banks.

Since the mid-1990s Deutsche Bank commercial real estate division offered Donald Trump financial backing, even though in the early 1990s Citibank, Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical, Bankers Trust, and 68 other entities refused to financially support him.

In 2008, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for $3 billion and a few years later, he shifted his financial portfolio from the investment banking division to Deutsche Bank private wealth division with Rosemary Vrablic, formerly of Citigroup, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch, becoming Trump's new personal banker at Deutsche Bank.A Mar-a-Lago Weekend and an Act of God: Trump’s History With Deutsche Bank
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In 2007, the company's headquarters, the Deutsche Bank Twin Towers building, was extensively renovated for three years, certified LEED Platinum and DGNB Gold.

In 2010, the bank developed and owned the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, after the casino's original developer defaulted on its borrowings. Deutsche Bank ran it at a loss until its sale in May 2014. The bank's exposure at the time of sale was more than $4 billion, and sold the property to Blackstone Group for $1.73 billion.

Great Recession and European debt crisis (2007–2012)

Housing credit bubble and CDO market

Deutsche Bank was one of the major drivers of the expansion of the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market during the housing credit bubble from 2004 to 2008, creating about $32 billion worth. The 2011 US Senate Permanent Select Committee on Investigations report on "Wall Street and the Financial Crisis" analyzed Deutsche Bank as a case study of investment banking involvement in the mortgage bubble, CDO market, credit crunch, and recession. It concluded that even as the market was collapsing in 2007, and its top global CDO trader was deriding the CDO market and betting against some of the mortgage bonds in its CDOs, Deutsche bank continued to churn out bad CDO products to investors.

The report focused on one CDO, Gemstone VII, made largely of mortgages from Long Beach, Fremont, and New Century, all notorious subprime lenders. Deutsche Bank put risky assets into the CDO, like ACE 2006-HE1 M10, which its own traders thought was a bad bond. It also put in some mortgage bonds that its own mortgage department had created but could not sell, from the DBALT 2006 series. The CDO was then aggressively marketed as a good product, with most of it being described as having A level ratings. By 2009 the entire CDO was almost worthless and the investors (including Deutsche Bank itself) had lost most of their money.

Greg Lippmann, head of global CDO trading, was betting against the CDO market, with approval of management, even as Deutsche was continuing to churn out product. He was a major character in Michael Lewis' book ''The Big Short'', which detailed his efforts to find 'shorts' to buy Credit Default Swaps (CDS) for the construction of Synthetic CDOs. He was one of the first traders to foresee the bubble in the CDO market as well as the tremendous potential that CDS offered in this. As portrayed in ''The Big Short'', Lipmann in the middle of the CDO and MBS frenzy was orchestrating presentations to investors, demonstrating his bearish view of the market, offering them the idea to start buying CDS, especially to AIG in order to profit from the forthcoming collapse. As regards the Gemstone VII deal, even as Deutsche was creating and selling it to investors, Lippman emailed colleagues that it 'blew', and he called parts of it 'crap' and 'pigs' and advised some of his clients to bet against the mortgage securities it was made of. Lippman called the CDO market a 'ponzi scheme', but also tried to conceal some of his views from certain other parties because the bank was trying to sell the products he was calling 'crap'. Lippman's group made money off of these bets, even as Deutsche overall lost money on the CDO market.

Deutsche was also involved with Magnetar Capital in creating its first Orion CDO. Deutsche had its own group of bad CDOs called START. It worked with Elliot Advisors on one of them; Elliot bet against the CDO even as Deutsche sold parts of the CDO to investors as good investments. Deutsche also worked with John Paulson, of the Goldman Sachs Abacus CDO controversy, to create some START CDOs. Deutsche lost money on START, as it did on Gemstone.

On 3 January 2014, it was reported that Deutsche Bank would settle a lawsuit brought by US shareholders, who had accused the bank of bundling and selling bad real estate loans before the 2008 downturn. This settlement came subsequent and in addition to Deutsche's $1.93 billion settlement with the US Housing Finance Agency over similar litigation related to the sale of mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac