Deutsche Bank : Statements from shareholders as of 21 May 2021

Deutsche Bank

General Meeting 2021

 Statements

As of 21 May 2021

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The statements from shareholders currently submitted to us are presented below.

The statements are the authors’ views as notified to us. We have also placed assertions of fact in the Inter- net without changing or verifying them.

It should be noted that questions, counterproposals and election nomination proposals are to be submitted only through the channels described in the agenda and, accordingly, questions, counterproposals and election nomination proposals contained in the published statements will not be considered.

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Statements

Shareholder Peter Schmidt

Dear Dr. Achleitner, dear Mr. Sewing,

To begin with I would like to thank you and the Bank’s employees for your tireless efforts this past year under what for the most part must have been difficult conditions caused by the pandemic. To ride out the crisis year so well and maintain a relatively low overall level of credit losses was by no means a foregone conclusion. Congratulations are also in order for the very successful start to 2021. Mr. Lewis – your Chief Risk Officer – and his team have my utmost respect and esteem. The fact that Deutsche Bank suffered no losses whatsoever from the Archegos collapse again demonstrates how well it seems to manage its financial risks.

In this context it would be highly desirable for you to give more details during the AGM into the succession planning for Mr. Lewis’ position. To be specific, please give your best answer to the following questions:

• What progress has been made in finding a suitable successor?
• When can we expect a clear road map and a decision?
• Do you anticipate being able to fill the role from within or will it be an outside hire? If your preference is to bring someone in from outside, it would be desirable to ensure an adequate transition period.
• Going forward, will the role mainly be based in Frankfurt or are you planning for it to remain in London?

I should nevertheless be permitted one point of criticism. Looking just at the issue of costs and the notion of “tighten- ing one’s belt”, I find it highly questionable and open to scrutiny that the Management Board has again grown to the size it has. The Supervisory Board should by all means support you, Mr. Sewing, and your team in implementing the strategy, but do so many Management Board positions really have to be filled or newly created? It would be a very welcome step if the Supervisory Board were to present a plan to this meeting or at the latest the AGM in 2022 setting out the long-term strategy for Management Board positions and submit it for shareholder approval. Looking at the announcements made to date on this issue it seems that another new Management Board position is in the pipeline, potentially for an independent chief HR officer. If the aim is to create a new independent position at short notice, plans should at least be in place to carry out restructuring elsewhere before increasing the number of Management Board members again.

On a different note I think that the new virtual AGM format has been a complete success, including where answering questions is concerned. In my opinion there has been a real substantive improvement. In the interests of cost effi- ciency, consideration should also be given to perhaps switching to a hybrid model going forward, in other words alternating each year between a virtual AGM and one held in person. On that subject, I would like to propose specifically that…