Scandals Knock Deutsche Bank's Image --- Auditor's Report Points To Gaps in the System
FRANKFURT -- As Deutsche Bank AG mops up the mess of a spate of financial scandals, it's expected easily to overcome the balance-sheet damage caused by large loan losses.</br></br>Other wounds will take longer to heal.</br></br>In the string of calamities that has hit Germany's banking system over the past months, from Metallgesellschaft AG's losses on trading in oil-based derivatives to the collapse of the Juergen Schneider AG real estate group, Deutsche Bank has lost a lot more than just money. It has become a butt of jokes and criticism that have caused a damaging dent to its prestige, helping to push down its share price by more than 10% since the end of March, compared with a 3% fall in Germany's DAX stock-market index.</br></br>"They have lost the trust and belief that people had in Deutsche Bank," says Manfred Piontke, an analyst at Bank Julius Baer (Deutschland) AG. "They have lost a lot of their image."</br></br>In a bid to regain public confidence, Deutsche Bank yesterday unveiled plans to tighten its controls on lending to the real estate sector. It also announced the departure of two more senior executives implicated in the Schneider debacle.