Has Deutsche Bank head John Cryan quietly extracted revenge on his former employer UBS for poaching two high-profile private bankers?
Deutsche Bank boss John Cryan's unvarnished straight-talking and lack of showmanship compared to predecessors like Josef Ackermann have garnered him a «Mr. Grumpy» reputation Frankfurt since taking the helm of the German lender nearly two years ago.
The former veteran S.G. Warburg investment banker has suffered numerous setbacks as he grapples with a massive restructuring of Deutsche. The CEO fought to restore trust last year after a report that U.S. authorities were demanding $14 billion from the bank for mis-selling mortgage-securities in the run-up to the financial crisis.
Deutsche's stock plummeted as investors sold off the shares, while demand for swaps which effectively insure against default surged. Two months later, Deutsche had settled the probe for $7.2 billion, a bit more than half of the reported original demand.
UBS Conspicuously Absent
Now, the bank has been forced to tap shareholders for 8 billion euros in fresh funds – a fate it may share with Credit Suisse, which is backing away from its original plan to partially spin off a Swiss unit to raise billions towards capital.
Deutsche's cash call underwriters reads like a laundry list of European names including Credit Suisse and Barclays. One is conspicuously absent among the underwriters for the deal: UBS, despite being the investment bank which Cryan, who spent 21 years there, presumably knows best. Why?
Tit-for-Tat With CS
The «Financial Times» (behind paywall) offers two possibilities: either Cryan is still angry at the Swiss bank's poaching of Ravi Raju and Anurag Mahesh, prominent Asia private bankers, last year and frozen out his former employer as a sort of revenge.
The more likely explanation is that Cryan – who spent years as a financial institutions banker and still regularly visits corporate clients – is exercising a shrewd tit-for-tat. Provided investors go for Deutsche's cap hike and the bank can recapitalize, Credit Suisse's cushion will look even more paltry in comparison.
Cryan may be assuming that Switzerland's second-largest bank will follow suit and tap investors for cash sooner or later too – and return the favor by asking Deutsche to underwrite.
