Free Republic

Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of global equities sales and trading, scale back investment banking and slash thousands of jobs as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve profitability. Deutsche will cut 18,000 jobs for a global headcount of around 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank aims to reduce adjusted costs by a quarter to 17 billion euros ($19 billion) over the next several years. The German bank’s decision to scale back investment banking comes just two days after investment banking chief Garth Ritchie stepped down by “mutual agreement.” Deutsche expects its restructuring plan to...

Commerzbank aims to cut around 9,000 jobs in the next few years and will scrap its 2016 dividend as part of efforts to reduce costs in the face of negative interest rates. This is according to a source close to the bank's supervisory board. The job cuts will be spread over the next few years up to 2020, but the size of the cull, representing nearly a fifth of the workforce at Germany's second biggest bank, implies that compulsory layoffs cannot be ruled out, the person said. "This is much more radical than previous measures," the person said. The revamp...

German public sector workers fighting plans to extend their working hours have widened their strike action to cover most of the country. An estimated 20,000 local and regional authority staff including nurses, cooks and cleaners have joined the largest public sector strike in 14 years. They are protesting against plans to extend weekly working hours by 90 minutes, from 38.5 to 40 hours a week. The industrial action...has now spread to 10 of Germany's 16 states... Leaders at Verdi - Germany's biggest union with 2.4 million members - have warned that the strikes could last for up to six weeks.

Commerzbank, Germany's third biggest listed bank, is set to cut hundreds more corporate banking jobs after deciding to review its corporate activities. The redundancies, the exact number of which has yet to be decided, will come on top of the 4,300 jobs Commerzbank said it would axe by the end of 2003. This already represents about 10 per cent of its workforce. Most cuts are expected to take place in Germany, although some London employees will be affected. Further job losses may also be triggered by the bank's plans to outsource some of its support systems - a move that...