Ackermann's trials

摘要

These are hard times for Deutsche Bank, despite its huge strides in investment banking. Next week its chief executive, Josef Ackermann, goes on trial in Dus-seldorf. Careless words by Rolf Breuer, the head of its supervisory board, led to another court ruling last month that may cost Germany's biggest bank several hundred million euros in damages. Then there is Parmalat. Although no evidence has emerged of complicity in the Italian dairy group's fraud, Deutsche's name has become entwined in the affair. In many other respects, however, Deutsche's reputation has never been higher. In dubbing it "Bank of the Year 2003", International Financing Review, the capital markets' favourite newssheet, purred that Deutsche was a "lean, aggressive, focused universal bank". In the league tables that investment banks watch so keenly, Deutsche excelled last year as lead manager of bonds and convertible bonds and of some racier products, such as repackaged debt securities and high-yield "junk" bonds. In other disciplines it rarely fell below the top ten in the world.