Interesting Developments at Deutsche Bank

Image credit.

Always instructive, the blog entries by Mish (at Mish Talk) on Deutsche Bank and Angela Merkel betray a slant of interest toward matters German that is rare in the international (financially oriented) blogosphere.

Deutsche [B]ank has been caught in at least three recent lies. It said it was not talking with the German government about a bailout, but it was; It said it would not need to raise capital but it does; It said it could afford to pay the department of Justice fine of $14 billion but it cannot.

The source.

The day Deutsche Bank had lost its way was sometime in 1999 or 2001, when the bank's then top-man Rolf Breuer announced his company was aiming at a permanent return on equity of at least 25%. 

The end of Deutsche Bank as a German institution was heralded by Hilmar Kopper (around 1990), who derisively referred to his predecessor, the last truly German and charismatic leader of Deutsche Bank: Alfred Herrhausen (who had a strong interest in philosophy and other intellectual issues) by rhyming: "Bin I Kopper, brauch' nich' Popper" — "I'm Kopper, don't need Popper." 

By "truly German" I mean, in this context, a willingness and ability to design and pursue your own policies, as opposed to copying Wall Street. 

With Kopper the era of not thinking for oneself started at Deutsche Bank; from then on it was all about copying the culture and prowess of Wall Street, something that had to end in disaster.

I remember the abrupt change in Deutsche Bank's once arrogantly proud employees, when after the takeover of Morgan Grenfell, being a German banker at Deutsche Bank —as opposed to being a financial wizard in the City or Wall Street — had become a stigma suggesting one was risibly antediluvian.

From then on Deutsche Bank, in an oddly German way, could not be not-German enough.