Deutsche Bank Cuts Businesses, and Plans to Trim 18K Jobs

In a sweeping restructuring, Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will cut 18,000 jobs and abandon its global equities sales and trading business. The bank intends to cut costs as much as $19 billion in coming years, CNBC reports. That would leave it with 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank expects to report a net loss of more than $3 billion for the second quarter. There was no word on where the jobs would be cut, but the bank is dropping all business involving the buying and selling of shares, and much of that work happens in London and New York. Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board finalized the restructuring plan Sunday.

The restructuring signals that Deutsche Bank is abandoning its ambition to be a global trading powerhouse, per the Wall Street Journal. After years of decline, the bank will retreat to being a German bank concentrating on serving European companies and retail-banking customers. The plan calls for enhancing segments such as asset management, currency trading, corporate-cash management and trade finance. Incremental cuts and exploring mergers hasn't helped. The bank still will face challenges in cutting the costs and assets involved with the operations it wants to shed. Part of the second-quarter loss will cover restructuring costs, per the BBC. (More Deutsche Bank stories.)