Deutsche Bank’s Merger Knife Won’t Spare Asia
A high cost base and knock-on effects from shrinkage in the U.S. mean job cuts may be unavoidable.
Under a cloud: Deutsche Bank may give up three floors in Hong Kong’s tallest skyscraper.
Photographer: Justin Chin/Bloomberg
Sometimes being good enough just isn’t enough. That’s the situation Deutsche Bank AG’s Asian employees may find themselves in if a merger with Commerzbank AG goes ahead.
Deutsche Bank has relatively resilient investment- and corporate-banking franchises in the region, where Commerzbank has only a tiny presence. But the optics are awkward: It’s a unit stuffed with highly paid bankers at a time when the combination of Germany’s two largest listed lenders threatens as many as 30,000 jobs globally. The lack of a retail banking operation for Deutsche (outside India, where it has branches in 16 cities) or Commerzbank translates into a higher cost base. That’s likely to render Asia a target for cuts.