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Deutsche Bank Mulling Wilson, Kitchen as Heads of Non-Core Unit

Deutsche Bank Mulling Wilson, Kitchen as Heads of Non-Core Unit

(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG may task top executives Louise Kitchen and Ashley Wilson with getting rid of billions of euros of unwanted assets as part of the troubled German lender’s overhaul.

Officials at Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank have asked Kitchen and Wilson to lead a newly-formed non-core unit that may hold as much as 50 billion euros ($56.3 billion) of risk-weighted assets, according to people familiar with the matter. The appointments haven’t been finalized, one of the people said, declining to be identified as the details aren’t public.

Deutsche Bank Mulling Wilson, Kitchen as Heads of Non-Core Unit

A sprawling non-core unit, or a bad bank, may be at the heart of what’s shaping up to be the most dramatic overhaul of Deutsche Bank in recent history along with thousands of job cuts. Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing may shunt unwanted assets into the division, including esoteric derivative trades and soured loans, people familiar with the matter have said.

A spokesman for Deutsche Bank didn’t comment on behalf of Wilson and Kitchen.

The two are among the most senior executives at the German lender’s investment-bank division. Wilson is head of equities trading, a struggling business that may bear the brunt of cost cuts planned by Sewing. He previously worked at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Barclays Plc.

Kitchen leads institutional and treasury coverage, one of the top sales roles at the investment bank, and helped to run Deutsche Bank’s commodities-trading business before that. She was Enron Corp.’s head natural-gas trader in London before the energy firm’s 2001 collapse and later worked at UBS Group AG.

--With assistance from Steven Arons.

To contact the reporter on this story: Donal Griffin in London at dgriffin10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers

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