Deutsche Bank AG (literally "German Bank"; ; ISIN: DE0005140008, NYSE: DB) is an international Universal bank with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank employs more than 81,000 people in 76 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets.
Deutsche Bank has offices in major financial centers, such as London, Moscow, Toronto, New York, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Furthermore, the bank is investing in expanding markets, such as the Middle East, Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific.
The bank offers financial products and services for corporate and institutional clients along with private and business clients. Services include sales, trading, and origination of debt and equity; mergers and acquisitions (M&A); risk management products, such as derivatives, corporate finance, wealth management, retail banking, fund management, and transaction banking.
Deutsche Bank’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Group Executive Committee, since 2002, is Josef Ackermann. Deutsche Bank is listed on both the Frankfurt (FWB) and New York stock exchanges (NYSE).
History
1870-1919
Deutsche Bank was founded in Germany in January 1870 as a specialist bank for foreign trade in Berlin. 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: "The object of the company is to transact banking business of all kinds, in particular to promote and facilitate trade relations between Germany, other European countries and overseas markets."
The bank's first domestic branches, inaugurated in 1871 and 1872, were opened in Bremen and Hamburg. Its first foray overseas came shortly afterwards, in Shanghai (1872) and London (1873). Already, at this early stage, the bank was looking further afield, making investments in North and South America, Asia, and Turkey.
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.
Deutsche Bank's early decades were a period of rapid expansion. Issuing business began to grow in importance in the 1880s, and in the 1890s it really took off. The bank played a major part in the development of Germany's electrical-engineering industry, but it also gained a strong foothold in iron and steel. A solid base in Germany permitted the financing of business abroad, which in some cases kept the bank occupied for years, the best-known example being the Baghdad Railway.
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 entrée 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 in showed that their existence made sound commercial sense.
When in spring 1914 the "Frankfurter Zeitung" told its readers that Deutsche Bank was "the biggest bank in the world",Frankfurter Zeitung, Erstes Morgenblatt, March 5, 1914. the claim marked the highpoint but at the same time the end of an era. During World War I, the source of the visionary vigor that had driven many a determined company to succeed gradually dried up.
1919-1933
The immediate postwar period was a time of liquidations. Having already lost most of its foreign assets, Deutsche Bank was obliged to sell other holdings. A great deal of energy went into shoring up what had been achieved. But there was new business, too, some of which was to have an impact for a long time to come. The bank played a significant role in the establishment of the film production company, UFA, and the merger of Daimler and Benz.
The bank merged with other local banks in 1929 to create Deutsche Bank und DiscontoGesellschaft, at that point the biggest ever merger in German banking history. Increasing costs were one reason for the merger. Another was the trend towards concentration throughout the industry in the 1920s. The merger came at just the right time to help counteract the emerging world economic and banking crisis. In 1937, the company name changed back to Deutsche Bank.
The crisis was, in terms of its political impact, the most disastrous economic event of the century. The shortage of liquidity that paralyzed the banks was fuelled by a combination of short-term foreign debt and borrowers no longer able to pay their debts, while the inflexibility of the state exacerbated the situation. For German banks, the crisis in the industry was a watershed. A return to circumstances that might in some ways have been considered reminiscent of the "golden age" before World War I was ruled out for many years.
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: according to its own historians, the bank was involved in 363 such confiscations by November 1938. During the war, Deutsche Bank incorporated other banks that fell into German hands during the occupation of Eastern Europe. Deutsche provided banking facilities for the Gestapo and loaned the funds used to build the Auschwitz camp and the nearby IG Farben facilities. Deutsche Bank revealed its involvement in Auschwitz in February 1999. In December 1999 Deutsche, along with other major German companies, contributed to a $5.2 billion compensation fund following lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors. The history of Deutsche Bank during the Second World War has been documented by independent historians commissioned by the Bank.
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 Oesterreichische Creditanstalt-Bankverein in Austria and Hungary, the Deutsch-Bulgarische Kreditbank in Bulgaria, and Banca Commercial Romana in Bucharest. It also maintained a branch in Istanbul, Turkey.
Post-WWII
Following Germany's defeat in World War II, the Allied authorities, in 1948, ordered Deutsche Bank's break-up into ten regional banks. These 10 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 US$603 million in 1986 to acquire Banca d’America e d’Italia, the Italian subsidiary that Bank of America had established in 1922 when it acquired Banca dell'Italia Meridionale. The acquisition represented the first time Deutsche Bank had acquired a sizeable branch network in another European country.
In 1989, the first steps towards creating a significant investment-banking presence were taken with the acquisition of Morgan Grenfell, a UK-based investment bank. By the mid-1990s, the build up of a capital-markets operation had got under way with the arrival of a number of high-profile figures from major competitors. Ten years after the acquisition of Morgan Grenfell, the U.S. firm Bankers Trust was added.
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 US$476 million.
In 2001, Deutsche Bank was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The following year, 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 (2006). In Germany, further acquisitions of Noris Bank and Berliner Bank strengthened Deutsche Bank’s retail offering in its home market. This series of acquisitions was closely ali
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