One of the firm's most senior figures becomes head of the new organisation, while the head of private and commercial business on the international side is leaving for personal reasons, it said yesterday.

Deutsche Bank is creating a new international private banking organisation, melding existing business lines to build an entity serving a total of 3.4 million customers. The IPB is part of the wider private bank, which includes the German retail arm. 

Claudio de Sanctis, most recently global head of wealth management, heads up the new private bank and is chief executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa. As part of the change, Ashok Aram, who has been head of private and commercial business international and CEO EMEA, has decided to leave Deutsche Bank for personal reasons. (De Sanctis has been in his most recent role since November last year.)

Aram joined the German lender in 1995 and has held a variety of senior leadership roles in Tokyo, Singapore, Frankfurt, New York, London and Dubai.

WealthBriefingAsia has asked the Frankfurt-listed firm for more details about the impact on employees and other elements of the business, and may update in due course.

The private bank has been created by folding Deutsche’s wealth management and private banking and commercial business international units into a new entity. This business brings together clients from Germany, the rest of Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, along with private clients and small and medium-sized enterprises in Italy, Spain, Belgium and India. It will have around €250 billion ($284.3 billion) of assets under management and a combined revenue of approximately €3 billion.

“This exciting combination is the next step in the private bank’s transformation announced last July,” Karl von Rohr, Deutsche Bank’s president and head of the private bank, said. “I am delighted that Claudio will lead our new growth pillar. He has made a major contribution since joining Deutsche Bank in December 2018 and possesses all the qualities and energy needed to lead this strategically vital business for Deutsche Bank.” (Von Rohr referred to restructuring at the firm which has seen it take steps to reduce some of its risk exposures and recruit more client-facing wealth management figures.)

“With the international private bank, we will create a truly global organisation with a unique focus on serving entrepreneurial individuals and families with European connectivity as well as a personal banking powerhouse in major eurozone markets,” De Sanctis said. “Combining our internationally focused private bank businesses will allow us to develop our market share within and across local markets.”

Reaction
“It’s a sign that Deutsche Bank wants to re-challenge for the space. They lost a lot of ground over the last seven years with a shrink-to-grow mandate, splitting assets and wealth management and now combining PB and Retail,” Nick Dogileski, of the executive search firm Exeter Partners, told this news service.

“Wealth managment is a business line that the banks see as the future – annuity streams and sticky clients. [This has been] especially visible in the last three months where revenues are off the charts for integrated banks, enjoying the market volatility and luckily for the clients, the bounce-back came quickly so the numbers who were margin called out are not high.”

Among recent moves, one of the most prominent names in Southeast Asia’s wealth management sector, Kwong Kin Mun, is retired from the firm and was replaced by former HSBC Private Banking senior figure Chow Shang Wei.