Deutsche Bank Shares Drop Again as European Banks Get Pummeled 

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Investors are concerned about ability to navigate volatile markets

Deutsche Bank AG’s shares dropped almost 10% on Monday as the battered European banking sector was hit by a fresh selloff amid investor concerns about lenders’ capital buffers and ability to navigate topsy-turvy markets.

The German lender’s shares now have declined almost 50% since co-Chief ExecutiveJohn Cryan made his first public appearances in his new role, in late October in Frankfurt and London.

Monday was another brutal day for European bank shares, with Deutsche Bank posting a particularly steep decline. The German bank’s shares dropped 9.5%, to €13.82, in high-volume trading, while the Stoxx Europe 600 banks index fell 5.6%. Shares in BarclaysPLC, BNP Paribas SA and UniCredit SpA fell more than 5%. Greek banks also took a beating, with the three biggest banks by assets all seeing share losses of nearly 30% for the day.

Mr. Cryan, seven months into the job, has expressed optimism that Deutsche Bank is on track with plans to shed its habit of disappointing shareholders and resume paying a dividend as soon as 2018, for fiscal year 2017. His “Strategy 2020” restructuring update in October was meant to reassure investors that the bank had a solid plan to slim down, clean up its legal messes and make money.

He has said that revenue declines in some areas, while jarring to investors and employees alike, are inevitable for a bank that has reorganized its biggest divisions, exited businesses and cut clients. Deutsche Bank has sought to make clear it has the liquidity it needs to pay optional coupons to bondholders, a concern some credit analysts have raised.

After the close of European markets Monday, Deutsche Bank said in a statement that it believes it will be able to pay €350 million ($392 million) in coupons investors expect at the end of April. It said reserves that would be tapped for 2017 coupons are expected to increase as the bank sheds assets. Ultimately 2017 payments will depend on 2016 operating results, the bank said.

The pressure that prompted the bank to reiterate its liquidity position reflected how nervous investors have become.

“Not every day is easy,” Mr. Cryan said at a Jan. 28 earnings news conference in Frankfurt. “But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Still, investors seem concerned by what darkness remains. Deutsche Bank’s shares are trading at just 30% of book value, a measure of a bank’s intrinsic value. Even battered peers trade at twice that level.

The share decline is just one metric by which Deutsche Bank stands out in a field of beleaguered bank stocks.

Analysts and investors see the German lender, which runs Europe’s biggest investment bank, as too reliant on trading revenue. It lacks a powerhouse retail or private-banking operation, unlike its biggest Swiss and U.K. rivals, which have more substantial and stable non-trading businesses to fall back on.

The bank faces an overhang of billions of dollars in unresolved legal fines, including potentially big liabilities it can’t yet estimate.

“John Cryan still brings a lot of credibility,” Nomura banking analyst Jon Peace said Monday. He has a buy rating on Deutsche Bank shares. “But you’ve not seen the bulk of improvements yet. They need to get on with that as quickly as they can.”

Mr. Peace said that a general lack of risk appetite for bank stocks has triggered an investor “muscle memory” from 2008, when rapidly worsening macroeconomic factors hit shareholders and bank clients alike.

In early January, as Deutsche Bank shares dropped below €21, traders in the bank’s London offices quipped darkly that Strategy 2020 was on track. But shares soon plunged through €20.20 as well.

Deutsche Bank’s dominant investment-banking division has been split in two since Mr. Cryan took the helm. Senior management teams have been reshuffled.

On the evening of Jan. 20, executives from London and New York who run Deutsche Bank’s global trading business gathered for dinner at a small Italian restaurant in Manhattan. It was the first off-site meeting of the global markets executive committee since the restructuring. Garth Ritchie, a longtime senior manager in equities, had recently taken the reins of the global markets business.

The mood was somber. A few hours earlier, Deutsche Bank directors had signed off on fourth-quarter financial results, weighed down by billions of dollars in litigation and restructuring charges, and a revenue decline in the investment bank.

The numbers were deemed bad enough to compel a nighttime news release out of Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters, warning investors about a fourth-quarter loss one week before the scheduled earnings date.

The bank’s American depositary shares fell in response.

Some managers at the dinner questioned why investors seemed unconvinced by Deutsche Bank’s restructuring strategy, particularly as it affected the investment bank, according to people familiar with the evening’s discussion. One executive described what seemed like “a complete loss of faith” and an overreaction by investors who seemed not to factor in cost-cutting forecasts the bank had discussed publicly. Under the circumstances, the managers also talked about the need to drill down into their teams and gauge morale.

Besides the share plunge, which has drastically reduced the value of their deferred compensation, some employees have the added stress of regulatory monitors eyeing their trades, compliance and risk controls, Deutsche Bank insiders say. Frequent public commentary by Mr. Cryan and others about reduced bonuses doesn’t bolster the mood, they say.

At the January dinner, Mr. Ritchie introduced the evening’s speaker, retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who had led U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan and the Joint Special Operations Command. Mr. Ritchie had invited him to the Deutsche Bank dinner to talk to executives about the need for strong communication, teamwork among business divisions and focus during periods of stress, according to people who were present.

Mr. Ritchie had been counseling his lieutenants to think like a general in a war zone, and avoid letting market reactions and doubts distract them from their goals, Deutsche Bank employees say.

Analysts and investors say it could be another six months or even a year before outsiders get a clear picture of how such initiatives are succeeding.

“We need more clarity about the earnings base in the investment bank. It all depends on the investment bank,” said Ingo Speich, senior fund manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt, which holds Deutsche Bank shares. “I believe you have to give the supervisory board more time.”

Source: WSJ

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