Ackermann’s Italian Hedging Shows It’s Every EU Bank for Itself
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When Josef Ackermann called on lenders to help bail out Greece last month, the Deutsche Bank AG chief executive officer had already cut his potential losses from the crisis spreading to Italy and Spain.
Five days after lenders agreed to back the Institute for International Finance’s plan to accept losses on their holdings of Greek debt, the Frankfurt-based bank said it reduced its risks linked to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain by 70 percent in the first half. In Italy, the lender cut its exposure to 996 million euros ($1.4 billion) from 8.01 billion euros.