Wall Street on Deutsche Bank: Restructuring plan may be too 'radical' and too 'optimistic' - CNBC

A customer pays a taxi-driver near the offices of Deutsche Bank AG in London, U.K., on Monday, July 8, 2019. Deutsche Bank announced a sweeping turnaround plan that will transform Germany's biggest bank, with Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing radically shrinking and reshaping its global operations. Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Big players on the Wall Street have termed Deutsche Bank's major restructuring drive as "very deep," "radical" as well as "challenging."

Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of its global equities sales and trading operations, scale back its investment banking and slash thousands of jobs as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve profitability.

Deutsche will cut 18,000 jobs for a global headcount of around 74,000 employees by 2022. The bank aims to reduce adjusted costs by a quarter to 17 billion euros ($19 billion) over the next several years. The shares were down more than 6% in U.S. trading Monday.

While the embattled lender may have gone through a number of strategy overhauls in recent years, its CEO James von Moltke told CNBC Sunday that the bank is determined this new round of restructuring will be its last.

One of the risks that market analysts perceived of Deutsche's restructuring plan was its impact on the larger banking sector. CNBC takes a look at what the analysts from major banks have to say about Deutsche Bank's biggest ever restructuring plan.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs in a note on Monday called the restructuring as "very deep" but warned of challenges.

"A very deep restructuring, by any measure. Media reporting ahead of Sunday's board meeting was intense, yet the announcements still surprised in terms of their scope and scale, Goldman Sachs noted.

"DBK's structural challenges, as we see them, fall into three categories: the absence of a high-return platform, elevated funding costs, and uncertainty around the scope of its IB business," the note stated.

On the big job cuts and exit from global equities sales, Goldman notes that it is bigger than what was expected.

"Whilst we did expect DBK to substantially scale back its equities operation, we did not expect a wholesale exit across geographies - including in its home market of European / German equities - and business lines."

Citi

Citi, in a research note, termed the restructuring plan as setting "optimistic targets."

"In a well-telegraphed announcement after two weeks of media headlines Deutsche Bank has confirmed a significant restructuring," the note said.

"Restructuring charges of €7.4 billion (c12% of tangible equity) are heavier than anticipated, but spread out over 4 years. Management intends to fund this from existing resources, so there is no capital raise. This may yet prove optimistic."

Citi has set a price target of 6 euros for the German lender and rates it as "high risk" for exposure to a number of outstanding litigation issues.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Bank of America Merrill Lynch called the plan "ambitious" but said a number if questions still remain unanswered.

"This is an ambitious plan for sure, with larger cost cuts and a higher targeted RoTE than expected. Capital elements were largely anticipated by the market, but in our view leave the bank's strategy in the hands of the regulators, BofAML analysts Andrew Stimpson and Alastair Ryan said in a research note Monday.

"Without a reduction in capital requirements or the ECB (European Central Bank) agreeing to allow operational RWA (risk-weighted assets) to reduce faster, then DBK may have little capital to deploy into the higher multiple businesses it wishes to grow," the note added.

J.P. Morgan

JP Morgan termed it as a "bold restructuring" but also said "execution remains key"

"DB restructuring in our view is bold and for the first time not half-baked but a real strategic shift giving up its Tier I IB ambitions. DB is rightsizing to where it came from originally, a corporate bank with the addition of a large Fixed Income footprint."

"We believe further questions need to be answered such as: i) credibility around execution, ii) revenue growth details and rationale, where DB has disappointed in the past, iii) employee motivation post the restructuring to go for regaining market share in Fixed Income and around DB's ability to operate a corporate franchise without a European equity business."

J.P. Morgan in its note further stated that there are a number of upside and downside risks. These could include global economy undergoing a slowdown with a corresponding deterioration in credit quality and weaker revenues, which could affect DB's profitability. Execution risk on the latest strategy announced could pose as both upside and downside headwind, according to JPM.

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley in its research note stated that the new targets set by Deutsche Bank seem "ambitious at first take."

"Investment bank is being materially scaled back. Despite the size of RWAs cut, it is self funded with target CET1 (common equity Tier 1) ratio at 12.5%. Execution details will be key to potential re-rating," Morgan Stanley said in a note.

"In fixed income, DBK also aims to scale back significantly (in Rates in particular), reducing RWAs allocated to this business by 40%. Overall we think the strategic announcement could lead to a short-term bounce for the stock on no dilution, yet any potential re-rating will depend on details on execution," the note added.

Morgan Stanley added that even though Deutsche Bank's overhaul plan has been discussed at length with the bank's home regulator Bafin, they expect Europe's Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) — the European institution that oversees banks in the euro zone — to be informed as well as be content with the CET1 minimum target.

Deutsche Bank has reduced the CET1 target to >12.5% from >13.0% in its latest plan.

Barclays

Barclays' analysts have warned they expect Deutsche Bank shares to be volatile on the back of the latest restructuring plan.

"The reduction in the CET1 ratio target had been suggested in press articles last week - e.g. FT, Bloomberg - and so is not a surprise. Nevertheless it will be important to see the capital trajectory that management are assuming in the coming periods, and the conviction/assumptions surrounding that," Barclays said in the note on Monday.

Barclays' further adds that investors will be keeping an eye on how this plan is executed.

"It will also be important to see how management will execute on the cost reduction, given its scope, and whether this can be done without revenue consequences. Further it will also be interesting to hear how all the planned investments in IT and controls will be paid for."

RBC Capital Markets

RBC termed the restructuring "more radical than expected" and will support the share price in the short-term. RBC also increased its price target on Deutsche Bank.

"We raise our PT (price target) from EUR7.5 to EUR8ps. However, as the plan pushes the profitability improvement further out in time on our estimates, we see more value elsewhere in the sector. Maintaining Underperform, Speculative Risk."

RBC also stated that Deutsche Bank's announcement is a "material transformation plan" and if the set ROTE 2022 target of 8% is delivered then there could be significant upside in the shares.

"We believe the near-term profitability will remain low; in fact, on our estimates the transformation leads to a deterioration. We expect peers to be better placed to weather any deterioration in the macro political environment and to benefit from business lost at DBK. The transformation plan will also lower DBK's CET ratio and there is a risk that it might have to raise capital."

UBS

UBS, in a note on Monday, said Deutsche Bank's new plan shows the willingness and determination to change the profile of the bank.

"The new strategy in our view aims at breaking through the self-feeding debt/equity circle which we have often discussed in our research and to make Deutsche less of a levered market play vulnerable to external events," UBS said in its note Monday.

UBS further states that short-term market reaction could be positive. "Progress over the coming quarters could then further increase the market confidence in the plan. That said, overall market conditions and restructuring uncertainties could materially impact revenues. Some key questions remain: What about frictions and (negative) side-effects? Execution uncertainties?"

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/wall-street-analysts-say-deutsche-banks-restructuring-may-be-too-optimistic.html

2019-07-08 14:24:16Z
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Amazon workers in Minnesota plan Prime Day strike despite $15-an-hour pledge - INFORUM

Workers at a Shakopee, Minnesota, fulfillment center plan a six-hour work stoppage July 15, the first day of Prime Day. Amazon started the event five years ago, using deep discounts on televisions, toys and clothes to attract and retain Prime members, who pay subscription fees in exchange for free shipping and other perks.

"Amazon is going to be telling one story about itself, which is they can ship a Kindle to your house in one day, isn't that wonderful," said William Stolz, one of the Shakopee employees organizing the strike. "We want to take the opportunity to talk about what it takes to make that work happen and put pressure on Amazon to protect us and provide safe, reliable jobs."

Amazon, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the planned strike.

In Europe, where unions are stronger, Amazon workers routinely strike during big shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday. Until now, Amazon's U.S. workers haven't walked off the job during key sales days. About 250 union pilots who haul packages for Amazon and DHL Worldwide Express staged a brief strike in the leadup to Thanksgiving in 2016 before a federal judge ordered them back to work, eliminating any disruptions during the peak holiday shopping season.

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As one of the world's most valuable companies -- led by Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest person -- Amazon has become a symbol of income inequality. Critics say it benefits from tax breaks to build warehouses but pays workers so little that some are forced to seek government assistance for basic needs like food and health care. The pledge to pay $15 an hour didn't happen until the company had weathered attacks from politicians such as presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who proposed a "Stop BEZOS" act that would have imposed a tax on companies like Amazon to make up for the cost of government benefits like Medicaid for their employees.

Of late, warehouses in Minnesota's Twin Cities region have become an epicenter of worker activism, led by East African Muslim immigrants who organizers say compose the majority of the five facilities' staff. Last year workers thronged the entryway of a delivery center chanting "Yes we can" in Somali and English, presenting management with demands such as reduced workloads while fasting for Ramadan. They also circulated flyers at a nearby fulfillment center urging co-workers to wear blue shirts and hijabs in support of the same cause.

Organizers say the actions led to talks between employees and management last fall and spurred some modest changes. These include relaxing pressure on workers to meet quotas during Ramadan and the designation of a conference room as a prayer space.

But they say the company has failed to meet worker demands such as converting more temps to Amazon employees and permanently easing productivity quotas they allege make the jobs unsafe and insecure. In a letter last year to the National Labor Relations Board that was reported by The Verge, an attorney for Amazon said that hundreds of employees at one Baltimore facility were terminated within about a year for failing to meet productivity rates. In March, workers staged a three-hour strike.

On July 15, employees at the Shakopee facility plan to strike about three hours at the end of the day shift and for about three hours at the start of the night shift. In the afternoon, workers also plan to rally outside the facility, located about 25 miles from Minneapolis.

In an effort to show solidarity, a handful of Amazon's white collar-engineers intend to fly to Minnesota to join the demonstration, where activists will demand the company take action against climate change as well as easing quotas and making more temps permanent employees. "We're both fighting for a livable future," said Seattle software engineer Weston Fribley, one of several employees from the group Amazon Employees For Climate Justice who will be making the trip.

It's the latest example of tech employees with very different jobs trying to forge common cause in the hopes their bosses find their demands harder to ignore.

"We see that our fights are stronger together," said Abdirahman Muse, executive director of the Awood Center, the worker advocacy group spearheading the Minnesota activism, whose backers include the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, and the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Muse said he expects more than 100 workers to strike.

Workers are also pressing their case to the federal government, claiming their activism earlier this year was illegally punished. Workers filed a pair of complaints last week with the National Labor Relations Board. The first, filed against Amazon's staffing vendor Integrity Staffing Solutions, alleges that it illegally retaliated against a worker who organizers say had been mobilizing co-workers for the March strike and was terminated as he was about to walk off the job to participate.

The second complaint, filed against Amazon itself, claims the company retaliated against other workers who went on strike in March by deducting hours from their unpaid time off allotment. The hours they spent striking were counted against the 20 total hours workers can miss each quarter without being fired, according to organizers. Such actions could chill workplace activism and run afoul of federal law, even if they didn't lead to any actual terminations, said Seattle University law professor Charlotte Garden.

"It's a violation of labor law when an employer punishes workers for striking, and one way of punishing workers for striking is to take some of their leave away," she said.

The labor relations board has received about 50 complaints about Amazon, most of which have been withdrawn or dismissed. The Shakopee worker complaint stands out since it alleges collective mistreatment of more than a dozen staff.

The Amazon spokeswoman said that company had yet to see the complaint about alleged unfair labor practices.

Logistically, the strike will probably amount to little more than a hiccup to Amazon because other facilities and people can easily pick up any slack. Still, the action shows that Amazon workers, buoyed by a tight labor market and employee activism elsewhere, have been emboldened to demand better treatment. Nor will the political pressure go away. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, another leading presidential candidate, have both called Amazon out over allegations it interfered with Whole Foods workers' right to organize.

This article was written by Josh Eidelson and Spencer Soper, reporters for Bloomberg.

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2019-07-08 14:00:00Z
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Amazon workers are planning a strike for one of its busiest shopping days of the year - Business Insider

An Amazon warehouse in the UK.REUTERS/Phil Noble

A group of Amazon workers is planning to strike during its busiest shopping day.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, employees at its fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, will be striking for six hours on July 15, the first day of Amazon's annual Prime Day sales bonanza. This year sales will stretch over a 48-hour period.

"Amazon is going to be telling one story about itself, which is they can ship a Kindle to your house in one day, isn't that wonderful," William Stolz, one of the Shakopee employees organizing the strike, told Bloomberg.

He continued: "We want to take the opportunity to talk about what it takes to make that work happen and put pressure on Amazon to protect us and provide safe, reliable jobs."

A spokesperson for Amazon did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Amazon has come under increased scrutiny for the working conditions at its warehouses as employees race to meet the e-commerce giant's speedy shipping promises, especially during the holidays and other busy shopping periods.

Read more: Amazon warehouse employees speak out about the 'brutal' reality of working during the holidays, when 60-hour weeks are mandatory and ambulance calls are common

This has provoked different worker protests in the past. Last year, over Black Friday, thousands of workers across Europe protested against working conditions.

And it's not only warehouse workers that are taking action. According to Bloomberg, white-collar workers are also joining the Minnesota protest to fight for more workers to be taken from temporary to permanent positions.

"We're both fighting for a livable future," Weston Fribley, an Amazon software engineer from Seattle who is making the trip to Minnesota this week, told Bloomberg.

Amazon's Minnesota warehouses have become the focus of worker activism in recent months. In May, three women from a Minnesota warehouse filed a federal complaint against Amazon, alleging that they faced racial and religious discrimination while working there and calling for an investigation.

In the complaint, they said that they feared taking time off to pray, fast, or go to the bathroom. They said white workers were promoted over East African and Muslim Somali workers and given better jobs.

An Amazon spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the complaint but said diversity and inclusion were "central to our business and company culture" and workers could "pray whenever they choose." He added: "Prayer breaks less than 20 minutes are paid, and associates are welcome to request an unpaid prayer break for over 20 minutes for which productivity expectations would be adjusted."

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2019-07-08 13:31:25Z
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Layoffs have started at Deutsche Bank. 18,000 jobs are going - CNN

CEO Christian Sewing confirmed during a conference call that layoffs had started Monday in Asia. He said Deutsche Bank teams in other parts of the world would also be affected.

Sewing unveiled a restructuring on Sunday that will eliminate roughly one in five jobs at the German bank.

"I am very much aware that in rebuilding our bank, we are making deep cuts," the CEO said in a letter to employees. "I personally greatly regret the impact this will have on some of you."

Deutsche Bank has not given details on which offices will bear the brunt of the downsizing. The bank has said its workforce will shrink to roughly 74,000 employees by 2022.

In addition to Asia, it has big offices in London and New York and branches and outposts throughout the world.

"We will only operate where we are competitive," Sewing said Monday. "We tried to compete in nearly every corner of the banking market at the same time. We simply spread ourselves too thin."

Deutsche Bank (DB) will shrink its investment bank as part of the overhaul, shutter its equities sales and trading business and create a "bad bank" for €74 billion ($83 billion) in assets.

It's a dramatic shift for a bank that has been in business for nearly 150 years. But urgent action was needed after recent attempts at restructuring failed to produce consistent profits.

Retreat from Wall Street

Germany's biggest bank at one point dreamed of dominating investment banking, competing with the likes of American heavyweights Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS).

Those ambitions were made clear in 1999 with the purchase of US investment bank Bankers Trust.

But the bank — and its investment banking team in particular — struggled to find direction following the global financial crisis. The bank reported an annual profit last year for the first time since 2014.

A sluggish European economy and a reluctance to reform made it harder for Deutsche Bank to compete in the expensive sector.

The investment bank continued to suck up resources even as it fell further behind competitors. The resignation last week of the division head, Garth Ritchie, signaled that major changes were coming.

The shift announced Sunday will let Deutsche Bank take a step back from investment banking and prioritize more reliable lines of business such as corporate money management.

But the restructuring effort won't come cheap.

The bank said that costs related to the overhaul would push it to a net loss of €2.8 billion ($3.1 billion) for the second quarter. The total cost of the restructuring will hit €7.4 billion ($8.3 billion) by 2022.

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2019-07-08 13:07:00Z
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Elon Musk says free self-driving chip upgrade could come to older Teslas this year - The Verge

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company will “most likely” start retrofitting its new, more powerful processing chip into older vehicles near the end of the year. The new FSD chip is the first to have been designed in-house. Tesla says it offers 21 times the performance of the Nvidia chips it replaces — a claim Nvidia disputes. The new chip has been shipping in Model S, X, and 3 cars since before its announcement, but soon it will be offered as a free upgrade to half a million Tesla owners.

Elon Musk has made big promises about the new chip, which he claims has enough power to eventually allow for fully self-driving cars, if and when the software catches up. The upgraded FSD computer includes two of these new chips for redundancy. Despite being a lot more powerful, the company says the new chip costs 20 percent less than its previous “HW2+” Nvidia hardware, and only draws a bit more power.

End of Q4, most likely

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2019

The FSD chip upgrade will be offered for free to any Tesla owners who have paid for the company’s “Full Self-Driving” add-on package, which costs $6,000. That’s about 500,000 cars, according to Musk’s estimate. The option currently gives you access to Tesla’s Navigate on Autopilot feature, which is capable of guiding you from “on-ramp to off-ramp” on highways, meaning it can suggest lane-changes, navigate highway interchanges, and can proactively take exits. Without it, cars are limited to regular autopilot, which offers automatic steering on highways and adaptive cruise control.

The name of the Full-Self Driving package has been controversial. In October last year, the company stopped promoting the option, claiming that it was causing “too much confusion” for its customers. That’s understandable, since the Navigate on Autopilot feature it enables is a far cry from the “full self-driving” functionality implied. In spite of the criticism however, the option soon returned in February.

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2019-07-08 11:03:44Z
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British Airways Faces £183m Fine Over Data Breach - One Mile at a Time

In September 2018, details of a massive British Airways data breach went public.

The basics of British Airways’ data breach

It was revealed that between August 21 and September 5, 2018, personal and financial details of customers using ba.com may have been compromised. Initial reports suggested that this impacted about 380,000 transactions, so that’s a significant breach.

Many of you are probably familiar with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect last year, and has some strict new guidelines for how companies have to protect consumers’ information.

British Airways facing £183m fine

British Airways is now facing the consequences of this breach under GDPR, and their fine is massive. British Airways is looking at a £183m fine from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for last year’s data breach.

This is the biggest penalty the ICO has ever handed out, and it’s the first to be made public under the new rules.

Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham had the following to say:

“People’s personal data is just that – personal. When an organisation fails to protect it from loss, damage or theft, it is more than an inconvenience.

“That’s why the law is clear – when you are entrusted with personal data, you must look after it. Those that don’t will face scrutiny from my office to check they have taken appropriate steps to protect fundamental privacy rights.”

With GDPR, the maximum penalty for a breach like this is 4% of annual turnover. British Airways’ penalty amounts to about 1.5% of their annual turnover.

So while it’s not the maximum, it’s by far the biggest fine that has ever been levied, as previously the biggest penalty was a £500,000 fine to Facebook. This British Airways fine is nearly 370x as big as the previous biggest one.

It sure does seem like the commission is trying to make an example of British Airways here. While they’re fining within the limits, I think this will send a message to companies about the importance of safely securing customer data.

British Airways is appealing the decision

Following this ruling, British Airways has 28 days to appeal the decision.

IAG CEO Willie Walsh has said that the airline intends to appeal the decision:

“We intend to take all appropriate steps to defend the airline’s position vigorously, including making any necessary appeals.”

Meanwhile British Airways CEO Alex Cruz has said he’s “surprised and disappointed” in their findings:

“British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act to steal customers’ data. We have found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft.”

Bottom line

It sure seems like major data breaches have become more common in the past couple of years, rather than less common. This penalty for British Airways does seem extreme, given the previous precedent. At the same time, it doesn’t seem unreasonable in the sense that it’s not even the maximum they could be fined.

If this doesn’t send a shiver down the spine of the executive of any major company, I don’t know what will.

I’ll be curious to see if British Airways has any luck with their appeal…

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2019-07-08 10:37:19Z
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Weaker growth will offset a Fed rate cut—so sell stocks, warns Morgan Stanley - MarketWatch

So we start the week with U.S. stock market indexes just a few steps away from all time highs.

That is even after Friday’s extra strong jobs data rattled some investors, who worried that the Fed could be deterred from cutting interest rates in a few weeks. But according to CME Group, that cut is happening.

Our call of the day though, kicks things off with a warning from Morgan Stanley which is “putting our money where our mouth is” and downgrading global equities to underweight from equal-weight.

Here’s why: ‘The most straightforward reason for the shift is simple—we project poor returns,” said Andrew Sheets and a team of strategists.

The S&P 500, MSCI Europe, MSCI Emerging Markets and Topix Japan indexes are currently only about 1%, on average, below Morgan Stanley’s current price targets—or their best guess for the indexes’ fair value. “There comes a point for every analyst where you need to change your forecast or change your view. We’re doing the latter,” wrote Sheets and team.

Morgan Stanley is expecting a rate cut, but Sheets argues history shows that when central banks cut because growth is weak, it is the weakness that matters more for stocks in the end. “If you don’t believe us, we have some European stocks from April 2015, shortly after the European Central Bank’s first QE program was announced, that we’d like to sell you”, he added.

The Stoxx 600 index of leading European shares is down 3.6% since April 1 2015.

Read: A strong economy and Fed rate cuts: The stock market wants to ‘have its cake and eat it, too’

Sheets and team are mindful of the “many ways we could be wrong”, Sheets wrote, with exhibit A being the chance that economic data could come in strong, and the Fed cuts rates anyway. That could lead to higher inflation expectations, and a boost for commodity prices, he added.

The market

The Dow YMU19, -0.21% S&P ESU19, -0.17%  and Nasdaq NQU19, -0.36% futures are down modestly after that Friday pullback on the stronger-than-expected jobs data.

Gold GCQ19, +0.51% rose decisively, oil US:CLN19 US:CLN19 is up modestly and the dollar DXY, +0.02% was down a little.

Europe stocks SXXP, +0.04% are flat-to-mixed, while Asia ADOW, -1.09% finished sharply down.

The chart

Is cash still trash? Our chart of the day from TopDownCharts.com shows how fund managers and others are already beginning to bake that expected Fed rate increase into their portfolios. Their allocations to cash are beginning to creep up from record lows.

TopDownCharts.com

Investor Asset Allocations — Cash Allocations

The buzz

A dark day for Germany’s biggest lender, as Deutsche Bank DB, +2.82%  unveiled the biggest restructuring probably of any bank since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash. The troubled German giant—which once hoped to be Europe’s answer to Wall Street titans like J.P. Morgan or Goldman Sachs—is to reduce head count by 18,000 and call time on a big chunk of its global investment banking ambitions.

This earnings season, zero is the number to beat. Expectations couldn’t be much lower, reports Barron’s.

Meanwhile, good news for those hoping to take cryptocurrencies—to date largely the preserve of day traders and hedge funds—into the mainstream. Fidelity Investments has long been known as one of the keenest among the big mutual-fund managers on developing main-street crypto investments; now its non-U. S. sister company Fidelity International is following suit. Staff have been given a game that allows them to simulate trading crypto, with cash prizes for the winners. Sounds like fun, though we do wonder; why not crypto prizes?

And, of course, congratulations to the U.S. women’s soccer team, who look set to be rewarded for their World Cup victory with a ticker-tape parade in Manhattan.

Random reads

Two Americans were among those gored by bulls in Spain’s annual bull-running festival in Pamplona.

Meet the dog-owners using DNA tests to reunite their pooches with long-lost relatives.

And Bloomberg’s top-end wining-and-dining destination in the heart of London is experiencing a bit of a problem at weekends, when the city is largely deserted. Restaurateurs aren’t happy.

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2019-07-08 10:27:00Z
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