A series of setbacks, public mishaps and a failure to win the bank's chairmanship are threatening to harm Mr. Ackermann's reputation as a leading figure during one of modern finance's most turbulent periods.
It wasn't supposed to end this way. Mr. Ackermann had hoped to leave a much-strengthened bank safely with a hand-picked successor.
But the transition has been rocky for Mr. Ackermann, a 64-year-old Swiss national who has played a leading role in Deutsche Bank's rise from its German roots to become one of the largest players in global investment banking.
As a result, Mr. Ackermann has looked more and more like a lame duck, say many insiders and observers of Germany's biggest bank. Real power at the company appears to be turning to investment-banking head Anshu Jain, who is set to become co-CEO with Jürgen Fitschen, head of the German business, on June 1.
The last days for Josef Ackermann as the head of Deutsche Bank have hardly been a victory lap.
Recent leaks to German media have indicated that people close to Mr. Ackermann were being shoved aside, and a key meeting has been postponed until after he departs.
The transition "could have been smoother," says Jon Peace, a banking analyst at Nomura in London.
Mr. Ackermann has kept something of a lower profile than usual in the past couple of months. The CEO, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
His plans started to go awry last year. First, he upset many shareholders by championing an outsider, Axel Weber, the former president of Germany's central bank, as his successor in the spring. When Mr. Weber was appointed chairman at Swiss bank UBS AG UBS -2.87% in a surprise move in July, the decision was seen as a setback for both Deutsche Bank and Mr. Ackermann.
The CEO compounded investor anger by publicly expressing doubts about the leadership quality of potential internal successors also on the managing board, suggesting in an interview with a German newspaper last year that they lacked "character."
The bank's supervisory board, the nearest equivalent at German companies to a U.S. board of directors, chose Messrs. Jain and Fitschen last July. At the same time, the members said they would ask shareholders to let Mr. Ackermann become chairman of the supervisory board.
That proposal jarred many shareholders, who believe that letting CEOs move upstairs to supervise their successors isn't good corporate-governance practice. In the past, some German CEOs who have become supervisory-board chairmen have tried to keep their companies on the courses they charter as CEOs, hiding any past wrongdoing, rather than working for shareholders' interests. German law was changed to make such moves to the board difficult, partly in response to a corruption scandal at engineering group Siemens AG in 2006.
In November, Deutsche Bank nominated Paul Achleitner, finance chief of insurer Allianz SE, as supervisory-board chairman, instead.
To add to the problems, the bank missed its target of making a record €10 billion ($13.1 billion) in pretax profit in 2011—something Mr. Ackermann had declared his final management goal—a shortfall the bank blamed on the flare-up of the euro-zone debt crisis in the second half of the year. He said in October that the goal wasn't achievable in such volatile markets, and the bank finished the year with €5.4 billion in pretax income.
Then, in February, other Deutsche Bank executives shot down a settlement Mr. Ackermann had negotiated to end a decadelong legal war with the family of German media mogul Leo Kirch.
Most recently, Deutsche Bank postponed the annual meeting of its far-flung global management, where Mr. Ackermann was due to be lauded for his years of service, until after he steps down in May.
Despite the setbacks, Mr. Ackermann has had notable achievements. During the global banking crisis in 2008, Mr. Ackermann led negotiations with the German government about a bailout for the country's banking system, while making sure that Deutsche Bank didn't need state aid. He went on to become chairman of the Institute of International Finance, a lobby group for major international banks, and helped negotiate the restructuring of Greece's bond debts.
In early March, leaks to German media signaled that Mr. Ackermann's successors were looking to oust some of his close associates, including chief risk officer Hugo Bänziger, and appoint a group of investment bankers from Mr. Jain's circle to lead the bank. The bank confirmed these personnel changes March 16.
Roughly a week later, the bank's global executive committee decided to postpone its annual management meeting, which was scheduled for early April, until after the new CEOs have taken over. People familiar with the matter have said the decision was made because it didn't make sense to fly in 200 managers from around the world, many of whom would leave the bank under the new regime, so soon before the new strategy for the bank was fully formed.
The tension at the bank has been palpable, several employees say. At a recent meeting, Mr. Ackermann and his successors appeared unwilling to even look at each other, a person familiar with the matter said.
"It's really disappointing" to have Mr. Ackermann's tenure end this way, one of the employees added.
Source:
online.wsj.com
