Deutsche Bank share price dips as latest plans to reduce risk and bolster capital position revealed
Shares in Deutsche Bank are trading down today after it was revealed the German giant was considering converting billions of dollars of corporate loans into marketable securities.
If the deal goes through as planned, it will help the bank to boost its capital ratio as well as manage some of its risk.
Although the plans have come to light less than a week after the lender revealed the US Department of Justice had asked it to fork over a $14bn (£10.7bn) fine to settle mortgage-backed securities claims, the bank has carried out similar deals over the last few years.
According to various reports, this round of conversions will be lower than last year's $5.5bn.
Shares in the bank are currently down 2.4 per cent at €11.42. However, when the possibility of the $14bn fine was announced towards the end of last week, the lender experienced one of its worst days of trading to date, with share price plummeting 8.5 per cent.
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"Clearly in the US there are much more punitive fines against banks than in the UK, especially if the fines are against foreign banks," noted Stephen Hammond, member of the Treasury select committee, speaking at a debate hosted by lawyers Collyer Bristow on UK vs US regulation. "There is asymmetry in treatment."
Shares in the German lender, which was kicked out of the Eurostoxx 50 index in August, are also trading at less than half their value compared with a year ago.
Deutsche Bank performed poorly in the recent European Banking Authority stress test and was one of only two banks to fail the US Federal Reserve stress test back in June.
Commenting on the bank's second quarter results in July, which revealed that net income had toppled by 98 per cent and income before tax by 67 per cent, chief executive John Cryan warned his company would have to be more "ambitious in the timing and intensity of our restructuring" should the already poor economic climate continue to worsen.