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Report: Deutsche's Qatari shareholders doing own search for bank's new chairman

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Report: Deutsche's Qatari shareholders doing own search for bank's new chairman

Deutsche Bank AG's biggest shareholder, the Qatari royal family, has reportedly taken the task of finding candidates to replace the German lender's chairman, Paul Achleitner, into their own hands after numerous failed attempts to restructure the bank has hurt investor confidence.

Representatives of the Qatari royal family held talks with an international recruiting firm as they work on a list of potential candidates and are deliberating whether to force Achleitner to step down before his term ends in 2022, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.

The move is running parallel to Deutsche Bank's own chairman succession planning, with Achleitner overseeing the process as head of the nomination committee. Sources told Bloomberg in August that Achleitner intends to complete his term.

Deutsche Bank has appointed four CEOs and saw its shares lose roughly 70% of its value during Achleitner's term as chairman, a role he has held since 2012. At Deutsche's recent annual general meeting, Achleitner survived a resignation vote but received the lowest approval rate of the entire supervisory board.

The Qataris' stake in the lender gives them an outsized voice in picking its next chairman. It is unclear whether Qatari entities Paramount Services Holdings and Supreme Universal Holdings, which each hold a more than 3% stake in Deutsche Bank, are both part of the push or if only one of them is carrying out the search, according to the Sept. 23 report.

In July, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing unveiled a radical €7.4 billion restructuring drive, which includes the elimination of 18,000 jobs by the end of 2022, to focus on core businesses. Despite the planned revamp, the bank is yet to win over investors and persuade them that it can achieve its new targets, including increasing core bank revenues to about €25 billion in 2022 and meeting its return on tangible equity target of 6% in 2022.