Deutsche Bank considers raising €8bn in new capital

‘Investors will be hoping that measures to shore up the bank’s finances could signal a turning point’

DEUTSCHE Bank is taking “preparatory steps” to raise a potential €8bn (£7bn), the bank said last night, as it looks to turn its fortunes around.

The steps, which it said also included “several potential strategic measures”, include retaining its Postbank unit and integrating it with the bank’s existing German retail and commercial business. It had mooted selling the German post office bank in 2015.

The bank could also sell a minority stake in Deutsche Asset Management through an initial public offering.

All the measures are subject to ap- proval by the bank’s management and supervisory boards, and Deutsche Bank said that no final decisions had been made.

Investors will be hoping that measures to shore up the bank’s finances could signal a turning point in what has been a torrid year for one of Germany’s biggest lenders. John Cryan, the bank’s British boss, has been faced with a se- ries of regulatory investigations into the company’s operations since he became its co-chief executive in June 2015, and sole boss last year. Earlier this year it was forced to pay £500m by UK and US authorities for lax anti-moneylaundering controls that allowed $10bn to be moved out of Russia.

Weeks earlier, it had come to a $7.2bn settlement with the US Department of Justice over claims it mis-sold toxic mortgage-backed securities in the runup to the financial crisis.

Deutsche Bank took the usual step of taking out full-page adverts in 10 of the country’s national newspapers in January in which it admitted that its past misconduct “not only cost us a lot of money; they have also cost us dearly in terms of reputation and trust”.

The lender had recently announced a €1.4bn loss for 2016, its second consecutive annual loss, after being hit by a bigger-than-expected €1.6bn litigation charge it took in the final three months of the year.

Questions have been asked about whether the bank can survive without a bail-out from the German government. But Mr Cryan has denied that the bank would seek help from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, suggesting in September that it would be “out of the question”.