Model Of The Universal Banker

It confirms that Deutsche has no intention of turning back in its stately progress towards being run in a more Anglo-Saxon manner.

The appointment does not signal radical change. It makes it likely that Deutsche will continue, perhaps at a faster pace, its efforts to raise return on equity, and turn into an international bank that can compete with the Swiss banks and others in investment banking.

That was Koppers mission, and Breuer seems unlikely to alter it. Yet Breuers personality and training make him a more natural exponent of such a strategy. With his ready grin, suntan and urbane manner, he is the very model of the modern universal banker.

 

Breuers appointment was greeted with some relief in the London headquarters of its investment banking subsidiary. The recent upheavals at Morgan Grenfell Asset Management have led to some nervousness over whether the traditionalists on the management board might attempt to rein back London.

Although Breuer, 58, had sharp words about a need for stronger discipline in the wake of the Peter Young affair, he is seen by London bankers as being essentially of the same mind-set. The word that comes to mind is genial. He is good at communicating, and straightforward, says one.

In background and temperament, Breuer is utterly unlike Kopper, who joined banking as an apprentice in 1954, having been born in the former East Germany. Breuer studied law at Lausanne, Munich and Bonn universities, and has a cosmopolitan and well-travelled air compared with Kopper.

In Germany, Breuer has been a strong influence behind the setting up of the DTB (the futures and options exchange) and the modernisation and computerisation of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

He heads the supervisory board of Deutsche Brse, which runs both financial markets.

This market-oriented background with a strong commitment to making Germans more equity-conscious and his membership of the three-man investment banking board (with Michael Dobson and Ronaldo Schmitz), indicates that the costly expansion is set to continue.

Breuers office looks more like an elegant drawing room than a conventional bankers workplace. He is a very clear, streamlined, straightforward thinker, says one of his fellow bankers.

Some colleagues say that Breuer is a more natural mover in the world of international finance than Kopper.

He has charm, and that is not true of everybody on Deutsches board, one banker says.

His colleagues say that he tends to support and have sympathy with those who work under him. By May, when he steps down, Kopper will have been on the Deutsche board for 20 years.