This one will go into the win column for public shipowners and the shipping equity research team at Germany’s Deutsche Bank.
Despite massive cuts of some 18,000 jobs by 2022 and an announced exit of the equities sales and trading business, Deutsche Bank is keeping intact its US-based research unit, led by senior analyst Amit Mehrotra, sources told TradeWinds on Sunday.
Repeated attempts to reach Mehrotra for comment were not successful, but the development is expected to be confirmed in the next days as the impact of the multi-billion dollar cuts becomes more clear.
In late June, JP Morgan became the sixth bank in recent months to fully or partly dump shipping coverage, following on Credit Suisse, UBS, Seaport Global Securities, the Maxim Group and fellow bulge-bracket firm Morgan Stanley.
With Deutsche Bank’s restructuring no secret in recent months, it was held as essentially even money whether its shipping-research team would become the next to fall.
The German bank’s significant exposure to ship lending no doubt worked in the equities team’s favour as the financier is to continue pursuing maritime capital-markets deals and the associated research.
In its restructuring announcement, Deutsche Banks said that its investment bank “will focus on its traditional strengths in financing, advisory, fixed income and currencies.”
It added, “As the bank continues to provide strategic advice to corporate clients, including a focused equity capital markets business, it will keep an equity and macro research capacity as well as a targeted equity sales force.”
For market observers, those are seen as the key words that suggest further activity for Mehrotra and his team.
Like other equity analysts, Mehrotra has taken to adjacent transportation sectors such as trucking as trading in shipping stocks has seen weaker liquidity and deal flow in recent years.
The development is also believed to be good news for veteran shipping investment banker Craig Fuehrer.
