Deutsche Bank sinking after another raid amid money laundering probe

Skies
are darkening over Deutsche Bank
REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

• Deutsche Bank’s offices were raided again on Friday,
  following a police raid on Thursday as part of a Panama
  Papers-related money-laundering investigation.
• The bank is under increasing pressure following a
  litany of allegations against the German lender, its shares
  dropped again today to a record low. The stock’s year-to-date
  decline is about 50%. 

Deutsche Bank’s difficult week continued as prosecutors
raided the lender’s offices in Frankfurt for a
second day, a sign the probe about its role in a global
money laundering scandal is widening.

The shares fell to a record low. Again. They were down about 3%
on Friday, taking its year-to-date plunge to a whopping 50
percent. The market capitalization of the once-mighty bank is
about $19 billion, not a significant amount more than the bank
has had to
pay in fines since the financial crisis. 

The bank has been dogged by high levels of executive
turnover and legal fines, and is on the back foot again after
successive CEOs have pledged to turn the bank around. CEO
Christian Sewing was appointed in April with the intention of
improving performance at the lender.

It’s been a rough few weeks for Deutsche Bank. The bank’s
head of the Americas, Tom Patrick, is thought to be
leaving the bank as part of a major reshuffle at the
beleaguered lender. He is the third person to hold the role in
the past 18 months. And the FT
reported  that questions have swirled around the
performance of the investment division head Garth Ritchie after
revenues at that division plunged.

Adding to the bank’s growing list of problems: last week
Deutsche Bank’s
role in Danske Bank’s money laundering scandal came to light.
The shares tumbled again after Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat
dismissed talk of a merger between the two lenders. 

That was all before Thursday, when about 170 police
officers and other officials seized documents during searches
through six different properties, including one employee’s
home.

The plot thickens 

An odd twist in the saga comes from the Wall Street Journal,
which
reported that Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for
supervision, Randal Quarles, turned up for a lunch with CEO
Christian Sewing and regulatory chief Sylvie Matherat during
the raid. 

The lunch was prescheduled and the two events were unrelated, a
Fed spokesperson told the WSJ. (But it’s worth noting that
Matherat is responsible for a department which deals with the
detection and prevention of financial crime by clients of the
bank.)  Matherat’s office was allegedly raided as part of
the investigation as well, the WSJ reported.