Deutsche Bank AG is set to shift up to 800 staff to BNP Paribas SA under a deal in which it would sell its prime brokerage unit to the French banking group as part of its exit from equities, insiders told the Financial Times.
The potential deal would also entail the transfer of assets worth tens of billions of euros, according to the Aug. 23 report. In its second quarter report, Deutsche Bank confirmed that discussions with BNP Paribas are on track over the sale of its prime finance and electronic equities platform.
However, the total number of moving staff, which would mostly come from London and New York, would still depend on the number of clients that will shift. BNP would reportedly pay a nominal amount for the potential deal and Deutsche Bank would not have to pay redundancy to staff who move.
At the time of the deal's announcement, both lenders had envisioned that a large number of Deutsche Bank's hedge fund clients would switch over their balances, which amount to nearly $200 billion, to the French lender, but some had opted to transfer to rivals such as Barclays PLC instead, the FT wrote. A formal agreement could be announced in the coming weeks, the sources said.
Deutsche Bank, under its large-scale restructuring, will exit its equities sales and trading business and reduce the size of its fixed-income segment. This would entail job cuts of up to 18,000 globally.
