Jon Cryan's new asset management chief at Deutsche Bank [profile] needs more time to evaluate the business, so stop bugging him with spinoff rumors already!

On Thursday (October 27) on Deutsche's Q3 2016 earnings call with analysts (see Seeking Alpha's transcript), Jon Peace of Credit Suisse asked Cryan (CEO of all of Deutsche Bank) to "comment on recent press stories about possible partial flotation of Deutsche Asset Management." Cryan pointed to Nicolas Moreau, who joined Deutsche at the beginning of October to lead asset management:

Nicolas Moreau Deutsche Head of Asset Management

We've asked him to review the business. And he will be coming back to the board recommending his views ... We've asked him to look at the individual constituent businesses and come up with a capital allocation plan for it.

Cryan's remarks somewhat echo his open letter to employees on September in which he shot down rumors about selling off asset management. Yet for those still wondering about a Deutsche Asset Management spinoff or IPO, Cryan's tone now seems to be a bit more measured:

As I've said many times before, we like asset management a lot ... It's a great contributor to the profits and the cash flow of the bank. And we'd like to keep it an integral part of the group. That's not to say we don't manage it actively and that's Nicolas' job. But we'd like to give him a little longer than 27 days in which to come up with his plans to how we take the business forward. But it's important for us as part of the group, and we want to keep it as an integral part of the group.

So, Cryan really doesn't want to sell it, but he wants to wait and see what Moreau has to say about it all. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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