Deutsche Bank to cut 2015 bonuses after record loss

Deutsche Bank is sharply cutting 2015 bonuses as it expects a record loss for the year due to writedowns, litigation charges, restructuring costs and tough trading conditions, three people familiar with the matter said.

While employees of Germany's largest lender will only be notified about their individual bonuses in March, they have already been told that payout pots for individual divisions will shrink by at least 25 to 30 percent, they added.

"For staff, 2015 will be very likely one of the worst years ever," a Deutsche Bank manager, who declined to be named, said.

Another person familiar with the matter said all employees paid above union-negotiated collective wage agreements, such as investment bankers, would be affected.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

Over the last five years, the lender has left compensation largely unchanged and usually paid out 38.5 to 40 cents to staff for every euro in revenues.

On his first day as chief executive of Germany's largest bank on July 1, John Cryan warned employees not to expect only "sweetness and light in the coming months", adding that they must repair a reputation damaged by misconduct.

When he laid out the lender's new strategy in October and announced 9,000 job cuts, he also said bonuses would be cut as staff needed "to share something of the burden" of the losses.

And late in November, Cryan publicly said that bankers in general were still paid too much.

Last week, Deutsche Bank said it expected to report a 2015 net loss of about 6.7 billion euros ($7.26 billion), sending its shares down 10 percent and renewing analysts' concerns that it might now need to raise more capital to strengthen its finances.

Deutsche Bank has announced in the past that it plans to raise the fixed part of salaries while future bonus payments would depend not only on employees' individual performance but also on the bank's overall performance.

The sources said, as lower bonuses reduce the attractiveness of a bank as an employer, Deutsche Bank was considering paying top performers some extra money to keep them from jumping ship.

Deutsche Bank has recently seen some senior investment bankers leave. Among others, the European vice chairman of corporate and investment banking, Marc Pandraud, left for a job at JP Morgan.

($1 = 0.9230 euros)