Axe falls as Deutsche Bank lays off 18,000 in $8.3 billion reinvention

Deutsche Bank laid-off staff from Sydney to New York on Monday as it began 18,000 job cuts in a 7.4 billion euro ($8.3 billion) “reinvention” which will lead to yet another annual loss and knocked its already battered shares.

Germany’s largest lender said on Sunday it would scrap its global equities operations and cut some in fixed income in a retreat from a long-held ambition to make its struggling investment bank, with 38,000 staff, a force on Wall Street.

Shares in Deutsche Bank, which has almost 91,500 staff around the world, erased early gains and were down 5.6% at 1520 GMT after its finance chief flagged “significant uncertainty” over breaking even in 2020. Its bonds also fell. U.S.-listed shares lost 5 percent.

Hundreds of employees at the bank’s Wall Street office were summoned to the building’s cafeteria Monday morning to be informed of their fates, sources within the bank told Reuters. During one-to-one meetings with management and human resources, they were told that they were being laid off and informed of their redundancy terms, the sources said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one employee outside Deutsche Bank’s office told Reuters that staff in the bank’s equity sales division had prepared for the worst for weeks.

“People have been planning their next moves but it’s a tough market,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Deutsche Bank had been one of the few European banks to maintain a significant presence in the U.S. after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. However, hampered by regulatory investigations and litigation, it has struggled to compete with U.S. rivals.