Leadership talks dominate at Deutsche

The supervisory board of Deutsche Bank will debate ways to retain investment banking head Anshu Jain and current chief Josef Ackermann at a crucial meeting on succession today.

Key members of the supervisory board asked to nominate a successor to Mr Ackermann have suggested a dual CEO model, with 62-year-old Germany chief Juergen Fitschen complementing the 48-year-old Mr Jain, sources told Reuters news agency.

Also said to be under discussion is a plan to elevate Mr Ackermann to the supervisory board, which would require special shareholder approval.

Klaus Nieding from the German shareholder group DSW said: “Ackermann is sure to get the necessary backing.”

Deutsche Bank is expected to seek to end uncertainty over its leadership, an issue that has dogged investors and staff.

A supervisory board member at Deutsche Bank, who declined to be named, said there had been “informal bilateral discussions about which models could work” and that, although everything is in theory up for debate, “discussions are not starting at zero.”

Investors are looking out for the performance of Deutsche Bank’s sales and trading division to gauge whether the lender remains on track to deliver 10bn euros (£8.8bn) in pretax profit in 2011.

The flagship lender is expected to deliver pretax profit of 1.97bn euros in the second quarter, a Reuters poll of banks and brokerages showed.

Last week Morgan Stanley surprised Wall Street with better-than-expected earnings, driven by strong trading in equity and fixed-income markets.

That provided a sharp contrast with rival Goldman Sachs which rattled investors with a 53 per cent profit drop last week.