Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank AG (German for German Bank) is a multinational bank operating worldwide and employing more than 67,500 people (Dec. 2005). Its headquarters are located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Dr. Josef Ackermann is its CEO and Chairman of the executive committee, Dr. Clemens Börsig is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Deutsche Bank is one of the largest investment banks in the world ranked by revenues and profits.

History

Deutsche Bank was founded in Germany on January 22, 1870 as a specialist bank for foreign trade in Berlin by the private banker Adelbert Delbruck and the politician Ludwig Bamberger. Its first branches outside Germany were opened in London (1873), Shanghai (1872) and Yokohama (1872). The first directors were Wilhelm Platenius, Georg Siemens and Hermann Wallich. Deutsche Bank acquired the banks Berliner Bank-Verein and Deutsche Union-Bank in 1876 and became then the largest bank in Germany, surpassing the Disconto-Gesellschaft.

Major projects in its first decades included the Northern Pacific Railroad in the United States (1883) and the Baghdad Railway (1888). It also financed bond offerings of the steel concern Krupp (1885) and introduced the chemical company Bayer on the Berlin stock market.

Twentieth century

Headquarters of the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt am Main

During the first three decades of the 20th century it expanded quickly and merged with other local German banks, eventually merging with the Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1929.

After Hitler came to power, instituting the Third Reich, Deutsche Bank dismissed its three Jewish board members in 1933. In subsequent years Deutsche Bank took part to the aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses: according to its own historians, the bank was involved in 363 such confiscations by November 1938. [1] During the war, Deutsche Bank incorporated other banks that fell into German hands during the occupation of Eastern Europe. Deutsche provided banking facilities for the Gestapo and loaned the funds used to build the Auschwitz camp and the nearby IG Farben facilities. Deutsche Bank revealed its involvement in Auschwitz in February 1999. [2] In December 1999 Deutsche, along with other major German companies, contributed to a $5.2 billion compensation fund following lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors.[3]For a detailed account of Deutsche Bank's involvement with the Nazis see: Harold James The Nazi Dictatorship and the Deutsche Bank Cambridge University Press 2004, 296pp., ISBN 0-521-83874-6.Security is tightened now.

Following Germany's defeat in the war, Allied authorities ordered Deutsche's breakup into ten regional banks on April 1, 1948. These 10 regional banks were later consolidated into 3 major banks in 1952:
*Norddeutsche Bank AG
*Süddeutsche Bank AG
*Rheinisch-Westfälische Bank AG

In 1957 these three banks merged and other takeovers followed, such as the GDR's state bank with German reunification in 1990; London investment bank Morgan Grenfell in 1989; Bankers Trust in New York and Crédit Lyonnais Belgium in Brussels in 1999.

In 1995 Deutsche Bank began the transformation from a commercial bank to an investment bank. It hired thousands of people from recognized firms such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch to provide the expertise for investment banking products. By 2005 75% of the Bank's revenues came from investment banking and the ROE went from 4% to 25%. It is now a leader in investment banking.

September 11 attacks

On September 11, 2001 the Deutsche Bank building located at 130 Liberty Street in New York City and acquired two years earlier as part of the merger with Bankers Trust was damaged beyond repair as a result of the terrorist attack. Large pieces of debris from the Twin Towers hit the Deutsche Bank building and sliced a large hole into its center, destroying its main entrance and lobby.Deutsche Bank sued their insurance carriers to require them to pay out the claims and in December 2004 Deutsche Bank settled with the insurance carriers and then sold the building to the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation.[4]

Deutsche Bank relocated most of its NYC Area units on 60 Wall Street - acquired earlier in 2001 and formerly occupied by J.P. Morgan Chase.

As of September 7th 2005 the Demolition work on the Deutsche Bank Building was to progress, andcontinue on for the next 7 to 8 months, expanding the WTC site with another 30,000 square feet of space.

In March 2006 human remains were found by construction workers cleaning toxic waste from this vacant skyscraper near the World Trade Center site. They found more bone fragments and human remains & the city medical examiner's office plans to extract DNA from the latest remains and try to match it against a database of the 2,749 people killed at the trade center on September 11, 2001. Fire Department crews had inspected the building in the months following the attacks, but construction workers clearing gravel off the rooftop found 10 bone fragments there last fall. The new remains were found in recent weeks by crews doing a more thorough cleaning before construction workers begin dismantling the building in May, said John Gallagher, spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.

Some victims' family members said forensic experts should search the 41-story building again. Two human remains were found January 27 on the 38th floor of the building. The Deutsche Bank building has been vacant since the terrorist attacks, when part of the south tower tore a gash in the building. Deconstruction of the building, which is contaminated with asbestos, lead and trade center dust, began in September.

On April 13, 2006, it was announced that over 300 more bone fragments had been discovered on the roof of the building.

As a show of solidarity with New York and the United States, a market in which Deutsche Bank is continuously trying to maintain a foothold, Deutsche Bank chose to remain in the Financial District of lower Manhattan, only a stone's throw away from Ground Zero while many banks moved their operations to Midtown.