The cops raids on Deutsche Bank’s offices in Frankfurt last week were not the fault of the current management team, harmonizing to the firm’s chief financial officer (CFO).
Two Deutsche Bank staff members are suspected of helping clients set up off-shore businesses to legalize honours money gained from criminal activity.
The wrongdoing is alleged to have continued through to 2018 but the bank’s economic chief, James von Moltke, told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach Thursday that current executives shouldn’t work hard the blame.
“To date, we are not aware of any wrongdoing on our part, so we will await the conclusion of the prosecutors,” Von Moltke said.
Following the explanations, Deutsche Bank shares pared losses slightly, but remained around 3 percent lower for the session amid a wider sell-off in international markets.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said an evaluation of data from the Panama Papers had triggered glimmer that the bank may have helped customers create offshore companies in tax havens around the world.
In 2016 unsurpassed, more than 900 customers with a business volume of 311 million euros ($353.6 million) were brown study to have been cared for by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary based in the British Virgin Islands, the prosecutor said.
Von Moltke give someone the cold shouldered the suggestion that Deutsche Bank’s present board had been weakened by the raid, adding that the current supervision team had made “enormous efforts” to improve controls on its system to better understand clients.
Shares of the bank slipped heavily catch news of the police action and the firm’s corporate bond value also fell.
The CFO said capital markets had “attempted to get a sense of proportion” of the raid and that the affected business was a small division with revenues in the single-digit millions.
“It was (a) trusteeship services business that in terms of revenues, customers and profits, was extremely small,” he said.
Von Moltke said there had been a “plumb muted” response by clients to the raid and that liquidity remained strong. The CFO added that the bank was working thick-skinned to explain the situation.
“Raids that take place with reasonable frequency in Germany, aren’t that grandly understood outside Germany,” he said, before adding “our focus is on working with the prosecutors.”
Since 2015, Deutsche Bank has tolerated a failed stress test in the U.S., several attempts to restructure, a leadership shake-up and a ratings downgrade.
Shares of the bank play a joke on tumbled over 50 percent this year, but Von Moltke said the bank’s operating health was improving.
“We organize been targeting to have the first profitable year in several years and we remain on track to achieve that.”
CNBC’s Sam Meredith role ined to this report.