Deutsche Bank employees worldwide and the estimated 2,100 in Jacksonville wondered Monday how the Germany-based company’s restructuring and plans to cut 18,000 jobs — roughly one out of five — would affect them.
Jacksonville’s workforce is expected to be cut because Deutsche Bank will leave the equity sales and trading business, which employs staff in the Southside operations centers.
At the same time, at least 89 job postings for Deutsche Bank in Jacksonville were listed as of Monday morning on indeed.com, including several for “Regulation, Compliance and Anti-Financial Crime.” Some were posted as recently as four days before.
Deutsche Bank said it will invest more into improving controls and combine its risk, compliance and anti-financial crime functions “to strengthen processes and controls while also increasing efficiency.”
The state had not posted layoffs by Deutsche Bank as of Monday afternoon. The mayor’s office and the chamber did not respond immediately for requests for comment.
The bank announced Sunday that its restructuring actions will include a workforce reduction to around 74,000 employees by 2022 but said it was too early to comment on specific details about how its announcement to “significantly downsize its investment bank” will affect its Jacksonville operations.
Deutsche Bank employed an estimated 2,100 employees in Jacksonville as of September 2017, said Brian Fay as he took over as head of Deutsche Bank at the company’s Southside campuses.
JAX Chamber’s list of the top employers says Deutsche Bank has 2,250 area employees.
The bank said it “is radically transforming its business model to become more profitable, improve shareholder returns and drive long-term growth.”
“To execute its transformation, the bank will significantly downsize its investment bank and aims to cut total costs by a quarter by 2022,” it said. It had 91,500 employees worldwide.
The bank said that restructuring costs will reach $8.3 billion by 2022, according to the Reuters news service.
CEO Christian Sewing sent an email to staff Sunday. “I personally greatly regret the impact this will have on some of you. In the long-term interests of our bank, however, we have no choice other than to approach this transformation decisively. Only then can we build on our long-standing history and make Deutsche Bank a leading bank once again. A bank which we can be justifiably proud of,” he wrote
TheGuardian.com reported Monday morning that Deutsche Bank staff members in London, Asia and Australia were arriving to learn their fates.
Deutsche Bank’s strategy includes leaving the equities sales and trading business and creating a fourth business division called the Corporate Bank, which will comprise the Global Transaction Bank and the German commercial banking business.
Jacksonville, the second largest Deutsche Bank presence in the U.S. outside of New York, includes some of the targeted functions, especially global markets, which is the sales and trading business.
The Southside operations also include corporate and investment banking, asset management, wealth management, the operations teams that support those businesses, global transaction banking, information technology, finance, cybersecurity, compliance, legal, group audit and anti-financial crime.
The anti-financial crime division is a key part of the Jacksonville office and was spotlighted in a New York Times report about transactions made in 2016 and 2017 by President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, which were flagged by the Jacksonville-based division as suspicious.
Deutsche Bank also said it will restructure its back-office systems and processes that support all business divisions. “These functions will become leaner, more innovative and more digital,” it said.
A separate technology function will be created to increase digitalization of all businesses, it said.
Deutsche Bank opened the Jacksonville Global Business Service Center in July 2008 with 100 employees. The city and state granted four incentives packages to the bank as it expanded.
Deutsche Bank occupies two campuses in Jacksonville’s Southside along Gate Parkway. It leases the five-building, 200,000-square-foot Meridian Business Park at 5022 Gate Parkway and a three-story, 150,000-square-foot structure at 5201 Gate Parkway.
The Deutsche Bank campuses have the capacity to reach a headcount of 2,800 in Jacksonville, although no time frame was announced for that.
Deutsche Bank does not run a retail bank in Jacksonville. Instead, the Southside operation evolved from a single-function operations center to a multidivisional regional office.
Deutsche Bank considers its Jacksonville operation to be a microcosm of its New York office with every business and infrastructure division represented.
“There is no doubt the Jacksonville location for Deutsche Bank is a critical location from our global strategy perspective,” Fay, managing director. said in 2017.