Deutsche Bank cuts another 2,100 jobs

Deutsche Bank is to axe another 2,100 staff in its corporate and investment banking divisions, with 350 jobs set to go at its London offices.

The job cuts announced by Germany's largest bank yesterday come on top of 7,100 earlier this yearas Deutsche has struggled to slash costs in the face of an uncertain business outlook.

The layoffs would affect employees across all grades of the bank, Deutsche said, adding it would carry out the cuts over the next 12 months mainly in the US, Britain and Continental Europe. The brunt of the cuts will fall on its corporate and investment banking divisions, which generated three-quarters of group pre-tax profits in the first nine months of 2001.

The bank said the cuts were "in continuation of measures announced earlier this year" and would result in a restructuring charge of 290m euros (£177m) in the fourth quarter of 2001.

Deutsche's investment banking arm is lead by Josef Ackermann, who is due to take over from Rolf Breuer as chief executive next May and who may well cut more jobs once he is in the driving seat.

Observers and analysts say the number of redundancies at Deutsche could double over the next 12 months.

"I didn't expect this to happen this year. But it certainly shows that there's more to come at Deutsche," said one London-based analyst.

Earlier this year, Mr Breuer refused to cut jobs, saying he did not want to weaken the bank's 97,000-strong workforce in the middle of its expansion drive and that he would limit cuts to 2,600.

But under increasing pressure to soothe investors after its shares lost almost a third of their value within six months, Deutsche was forced to adopt a strategy in line with rivals abroad and at home.