Hardly there, there was already criticism of the new chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank. A shareholder representative at the Annual General Meeting criticized that he had too many offices. Meanwhile, his predecessor was being celebrated by his companions.
There have been better times for a first public appearance. But because Deutsche Bank also preferred to hold a digital general meeting this year with reference to the pandemic, Alexander Wynaendts, the new head of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank, had to do without a personal presentation including applause in the Frankfurt Festhalle on Thursday. The largest German financial institution held its shareholder meetings there before Corona. Nevertheless, the 61-year-old Dutchman introduced himself to the shareholders in the digital meeting, in fluent German. As a European, he feels honored to join the supervisory board, said Wynaendts. “Deutsche Bank has gone through turbulent times.” But she has managed to turn things around in recent years – “thanks to a clear strategy and strong management”. The European economy needs a strong financial sector and internationally competitive banks. After a long search, the supervisory board proposed the insurance manager for election in November.
His predecessor Paul Achleitner emphasized the bad situation in which he took over the bank in 2012, which is why the path was “not always straightforward”, but now one is “on the right track” again. And of course CEO Christian Sewing also sees the financial house “on the right track to achieving its goals after years of successful transformation”. However, this confidence is not yet reflected in the share price, which is less due to the war than to the company’s recently dwindling cost discipline. After temporary gains, the course has fallen significantly more than that of other large banks in Europe in recent weeks. Looking at Achleitner’s entire tenure, the balance sheet is highly unsatisfactory anyway: minus 56 percent total return compared with plus 62 percent in the Stoxx Bank Index. According to one shareholder, Achleitner has not been able to achieve the goal of “reliably and sustainably creating value for shareholders” in the past ten years.
Will things go up now, with a new head of the supervisory board? Fund manager Alexandra Annecke from the cooperative fund company Union Investment is skeptical. Above all, she criticizes Wynaendt’s “accumulation of offices”, after all he sits on three other supervisory bodies, which is too many. But his lack of experience with German corporate governance, i.e. the rules of good corporate management, is also a problem. “Deutsche Bank demands a great leap of faith from us shareholders,” said Annecke. And that at an institute that, after the trials and tribulations of the past few years, “is still a long way from running on autopilot”. Shareholder Union Investment will therefore not elect the new chairman of the supervisory board. Andreas Thomae, portfolio manager of the fund company Deka, was more lenient: Wynaendts is the beginning of a new era for Deutsche Bank. “Unlike his predecessor, he will hopefully steer the bank through a somewhat calmer phase,” said Thomae. Deka thinks he is the right man at the top of the supervisory board. In the late afternoon he was elected to the control committee with 97.84 percent of the share capital present.
In any case, Wynaendt’s inauguration was overshadowed by Achleitner’s farewell show. The bank countered the rather critical media reports with an emotional six-minute film in which former and current board members had their say, but also employee representatives or supervisory board colleagues such as the former Eon boss Johannes Teyssen. Achleitner showed “humor and attitude, even when the sea was rougher,” said the Achleitner confidante. An employee representative remembers having “tea time” together in Achleitner’s Munich office, and former CEO Marcus Schenck wished him lots of fun cooking. And of course Achleitner tried to emotionally hijack Eintracht Frankfurt’s Europa League victory the night before with a picture of himself and Sewing in the Frankfurt stadium. That both are FC Bayern fans? Does not matter.