Deutsche Bank’s Anshu Jain Shifts from Bonds to Stocks

Anshu Jain, the head of Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division, earned a promotion to co-chief executive officer in July by cementing the bank’s status as a debt trading powerhouse. He’s had less success in his seven-year effort to turn the equity unit of Germany’s largest lender into a global leader, a performance that may haunt the Frankfurt-based company as higher capital requirements threaten to make fixed-income businesses less profitable. “Jain’s track record is pretty good in terms of bringing businesses he’s managing to a top-three position, though he hasn’t done that with equities so far,” says Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in London.

Jain took control of the equity unit, which trades stocks and equity-linked derivatives, in 2004. That year it ranked fourth based on its share of revenue generated globally by the nine biggest investment banks, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In the first half of this year it fell to seventh, while the bank placed second in overall sales and trading revenue, which includes equities, fixed income, currencies, and commodities.