Deutsche Bank Swiss head Peter Hinder is leaving the German bank. His departure follows a revamp which had removed a big chunk of his wealth management responsibilities.
The Frankfurt-based bank said Peter Hinder, the CEO of its Swiss bank and country head for Switzerland, will leave at the end of January.
Hinder’s exit follows a reorganization of Deutsche’s private banking activities into three regions: the U.S., Europe, and emerging markets, which encompasses Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
In August, Deutsche poached Claudio de Sanctis (pictured below) from Credit Suisse to run the newly-created European business. The hire and new set-up had reduced the role of Hinder, who until now has overseen Deutsche’s wealth activities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa on top of his Swiss jobs.
Meaty Role
Hinder will hand over the European part of his job to de Sanctis, who begins on Monday (the Middle East and Africa portion went to Asian head Lok Yim). De Sanctis will be appointed CEO of Deutsche Bank in Switzerland, effective February 1. It is likely that he will also take over Hinder’s country head role, which oversees Deutsche’s asset management and investment banking activities in Switzerland as well.
The exit of Hinder underscores the weight of de Sanctis’ role at Deutsche, which employs roughly 700 people in Switzerland. The majority of the German lender’s business in Switzerland is wealth management, but it also maintains asset management activities under the DWS brand as well as an investment banking unit. The wealth revamp means that de Sanctis will oversee considerably more than 100 billion euros ($113 billion) in client assets.
Marked by Change
Hinder’s three-year tenure at Deutsche was marked by turmoil: he began in 2o15 as the chief of staff to Christian Sewing, then the bank’s head of corporate clients, in Frankfurt (Sewing was named CEO of Deutsche this spring). Hinder took the EMEA private banking job two years ago, at a time when the German lender began to devote serious resources to advancing its business with the world’s wealthy.
Since then, Hinder has shut onshore offices in Russia, South Africa, the Channel Islands, unified U.K. activities into one bank from three vehicles previously, and migrated into a new technology platform from Avaloq. The revamp which ultimately cost him his EMEA job is the result of an aggressive effort to cut spending and seek more efficiencies within the bloated bank.
Frankfurt Raids
Deutsche was roiled last week when German prosecutors spending two days searching its Frankfurt offices in a money laundering investigation. Both regulatory head Sylvie Matherat and U.S. boss Tom Patrick are poised to leave the bank, according to several media reports in recent days.
Most of Deutsche's regulatory scandals pre-date the arrival of Matherat, a French former central banker who joined four years ago. Equally, Patrick has been in the job for just over a year. The raids and turmoil in management are toxic for the stability-minded wealth unit, which has been run by Deutsche veteran Fabrizio Campelli for the last three years.
