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JPMorgan Denies Report It's Considering Deutsche Bank Stake

JPMorgan Denies Report It's Considering Deutsche Bank Stake

(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. denied a report in German magazine WirtschaftsWoche that it’s interested in acquiring a stake in Deutsche Bank AG, after the lender’s share price slumped.

The New York-based bank and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. were named as being interested in an investment because Frankfurt will increase in importance after Brexit, the magazine said, citing “speculation” by investment bankers in Frankfurt. JPMorgan spokesman Patrick Burton rejected the speculation, while Deutsche Bank and ICBC officials declined to comment.

Deutsche Bank has been trading near the record lows it reached last month. A tumultuous management reshuffle and a plan to reduce its global presence and workforce under Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing have failed to win over investors. The lender is cutting at least 7,000 jobs after three attempts to restore profitability in recent years ended up eroding revenue.

Separately, German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the state of Deutsche Bank with UBS Group AG Chairman Axel Weber last Tuesday, the magazine also reported, citing people close to Merkel’s party in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia. A UBS spokesman declined to comment on the report, while a spokesman for Merkel said that the government trusts in Deutsche Bank’s strategy and that the report is speculative.

Deutsche Bank shares rose as much as 6.3 percent in Frankfurt trading, the most since April 2017, and were up 4.6 percent as of 12:34 p.m. That reduces the decline this year to about 37 percent.

--With assistance from Jun Luo.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Comfort in Frankfurt at ncomfort1@bloomberg.net;Donal Griffin in London at dgriffin10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, ;Neil Callanan at ncallanan@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen

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