Mr Ackermann expects

摘要

On May 23rd Deutsche Bank will acquire a new boss, when Josef Ackermann, a Swiss, replaces Rolf Breuer as "speaker" of its Vorstand, or management board. Mr Ackermann's stamp on Germany's biggest bank is already visible. Since January a slimmed-down Vorstand has watched over such tasks as strategy and risk management, while a new group executive committee runs the bank day to day. This week, when Deutsche unveiled so-so results for the first quarter of the year, it gave a further indication of the sort of business Mr Ackermann plans to run. Through lower costs and fatter margins, the bank hopes to boost a market capitalisation about which Deutsche has long fretted. Nine years ago, it was worth more than any bank outside Japan. Now it is well down the league. Britain's HSBC has a stockmarket value almost three times Deutsche's EUD44 billion ($40 billion), while America's Citigroup is more than five times as big. This week Mr Breuer told Boer-sen-Zeitung that the low share price was of "vital significance". He thinks Deutsche is an improbable (though not unthinkable) takeover target. But Deutsche's shares are worth too little as an acquisition currency for it to make big deals of its own.