It's likely that more often than not the heads of companies disagree with the media's interpretation of news from their companies. With the seeming exception of Elon Musk, venting their anger on social media seems rather rare.
Now, Stefan Hoops, the new CEO of Deutsche Bank subsidiary DWS, has taken to social media to defend the asset manager's second-quarter results and strategy against what he sees as one-sided criticism in the media.
«While I should take critical reporting about DWS Group on the chin, the competitor in me is getting the upper hand every now and then», Hoops writes in a post on his Linkedin profile.
Biased Reporting?
He seems to bristle at headlines such as «Massive outflows in Q2». While this is a tempting headline, it does not correspond to the facts, he says, and notes that fee-generating assets were «remarkably stable». Assets under management were up 50 billion euros in the third quarter, he says, due to a combination of inflows and friendlier markets. At the end of the second quarter, AuM for the group stood at 833 billion euros, according to the second quarter report putting AuM at 883 in the current quarter so far and around the same level during the third quarter of 2021.
The new DWS chief, who took the helm in June, also chafes at reports that there is a strong and wide desire among employees to bolt DWS.
«I read that our people 'seem willing to leave'» he writes, adding «Let’s check the facts: We have not seen a pick-up in attrition and our colleagues are fully focused on #ClientsMarketsInvesting. To be specific, we have not had resignations among our top 200 talents in the last 2 months and our investment division is stable».
In fact, at the end of the second quarter, DWS reported 3,508 full-time employees (FTEs), a slight uptick of 1 percent from 3,459 at the end of the first quarter. When compared to the same year-ago period, FTEs are up 5 percent from 3,342, according to the second quarter results.
Twisted Interpretations
Additionally, recent new appointments at the board level also drew one-sided commentary, he said. «Yesterday, we announced some exciting changes to our Executive Board, bringing in two rock-star women and adding controls and tech/data expertise. Still, somehow the main headline reduced this to DWS becoming more dependent on Deutsche Bank again», an apparent response to a «Handelsblatt» (in German) article.
«This interpretation could not be more wrong. In fact, it is the other way around: We are currently still using DB‘s tech platform and we are still following most DB‘s policies and procedures. We are only independent once we have our own platform and AM-specific framework», Hoops wrote.
