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Bloomberg
Deutsche Bank AG sold another chunk of unwanted assets to Goldman Sachs Group Inc as part of a radical restructuring that’s seeing the German firm exit businesses where it’s been unable to compete.
The nation’s largest lender recently sold securities with a notional value of about 40 billion pounds ($51 billion) to the US bank, people briefed on the matter said. The assets are tied to emerging market debt and were previously housed in Deutsche Bank’s wind-down unit, one person said. They asked not to be identified discussing the private deal. Representatives for Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank shares rose as much as 1.9% on the news, paring this year’s decline to about 3.6%. That compares with a slight increase for the wider industry. It’s at least the second time that Goldman bought securities that Deutsche Bank has earmarked for disposal as part of its latest turnaround plan. In September, the US investment bank purchased the Asian portion of a portfolio of equity derivatives that the German lender had put up for sale, people familiar with the matter said at the time.
Deutsche Bank’s balance sheet reduction is a cornerstone of Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing’s sweeping restructuring, unveiled in July. He’s drawing down the bank’s capital buffer to pay for the cost cuts and has promised regulators to reduce risk at the bank in return.
Sewing has vowed to cut the leverage exposure — a regulatory measure of risk — in the wind-down unit to 119 billion euros ($131 billion) at the end of the year, from 177bn euros at the end of September. He previously reached an agreement to transfer the hedge fund business to BNP Paribas.