Deutsche Bank Is Well-Positioned for Crisis, Chairman Tells FAS

(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG is well-positioned to weather a recession without state help, Chairman Paul Achleitner said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

With a “very strong” capital base and “record” liquidity levels, “we are very well prepared, if something external happens,” Achleitner told the weekly. Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing has the team and the personality to lead Germany’s largest lender into a “new growth phase.”

Deutsche Bank is closing out a rough 2018, with the stock declining 56 percent. Amid a sputtering turnaround, the dramatic images of police officers descending on the company’s Frankfurt headquarters last month in a money-laundering probe was just the latest dark cloud.

Despite all the trials and mounting investor criticism, Achleitner plans to stick it out. “The shareholders trusted me with a mandate until 2022. I stand by that responsibility,” he said in the interview.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Reiter in Berlin at creiter2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann

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