Deutsche Bank is a leading global investment bank, which offers a range of products and services in investment, corporate and retail banking, as well as in asset and wealth management with a strong and growing private clients franchise. Founded in Berlin in 1870 to support the internationalization of business and to promote and facilitate trade relations between Germany, other European countries, and overseas markets, Deutsche Bank has developed into a leading global provider of financial services. One of the world’s largest banks, it has a number of foreign offices and has acquired controlling interests in several foreign banks in Europe, North and South America, and Australia.
The first bank was licensed by King William I of Prussia on March 10, 1870, and it began operation in Berlin on April 9. Branches were opened in Bremen in 1871, in Hamburg, Shanghai, and Yokohama, Japan, in 1872, and in London in 1873. By the end of the century, it had absorbed a number of other German banks and multiplied its capital about 10-fold under its managing director Georg von Siemens. More mergers were capped in 1929 by the amalgamation of Deutsche Bank with its older rival, Disconto Gesellschaft. After experiencing difficulties at the onset of the Great Depression, the company prospered hugely under the Nazi regime.
With the collapse of the Third Reich, Deutsche Bank’s offices in Berlin and eastern Germany were closed by the Russian occupation forces or were expropriated; branches in western Germany were “decartelized,” coalescing in 1947–48 as 10 independent banks. As the Cold War progressed and as the economic growth and cooperation of what by then was West Germany became a priority, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization reduced its opposition to West German economic consolidation. By 1952 the 10 banks had been reduced to 3; and in 1957 the 3 successor institutions were reunited to form a single Deutsche Bank AG. The bank made several significant acquisitions in the 1990s, including U.S.-based Bankers Trust. Its primary interests are in Europe, and it has additional operations in Asia, North America, and South America. By the early 21st century, it served more than 12 million customers in more than 70 countries.
Against a backdrop of increasing globalization in the world economy, Deutsche Bank is very well-positioned, with a presence in over 70 countries, significant regional diversification and substantial revenue streams from all the major regions of the world.It has established strong bases in all major emerging markets, and therefore has good prospects for business growth in fast-growing economies, including the Asia Pacific region, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.In Europe, it is well placed to benefit from the aforementioned resilient conditions in its home market, Germany, and from continued strong levels of corporate activity in the euro zone.
The current logo was introduced in 1974. The Bank chose this famous symbol - a forward slash inside a square - from the 140 proposals submitted. It was designed by Anton Stankowski, a graphic designer. Prior to this date, Deutsche Bank had used various logos, typefaces and symbols.Its shares have been listed on the Berlin stock exchange ever since the Bank was founded in 1870. Further listings were in Frankfurt am Main in 1880, Paris in 1974, London in 1976, Brussels in 1978, Tokyo in 1989 and New York in 2001.
The registered office of Deutsche Bank AG was located in Frankfurt am Main on 2 May 1957. At the time, there were further head offices with large back-office departments in Hamburg and Düsseldorf. Today the Bank's only head office is located in Frankfurt. From 1870 to 1945 the Bank's head office was located in Berlin. Between 1947/48 and early 1957 Deutsche was split into several regional banks as a consequence of the Second World War and was not allowed to operate under its old name. Its first investment in an American financial institution was the limited partnership it acquired in Knoblauch & Lichtenstein, a New York bank, in 1872.
One of Deutsche's major international projects from the 1880s onwards was to help finance the construction of the US railways. Plans to open a branch of its own in America were thwarted by the First World War. Deutsche Bank did not operate under its own name in the US until it opened a branch in New York in 1979. In 1999 it bought Bankers Trust, a New York-based investment bank.
Annual reports are always much more than just numbers. This is where companies give account of their business, each and every year. They also contain a great deal of information that would otherwise remain uncommunicated. It is for this reason that the Historical Association of Deutsche Bank makes all past Deutsche Bank annual reports accessible to the public.There are no Deutsche Bank annual reports for the years between 1945 and 1951. The headquarters in Berlin were closed at the end of the Second World War and in the Western zones an Allied directive prescribed the opening of several regional subordinate banks; however these subordinate banks did not publish their own annual reports.
Therefore, the evolution of Deutsche Bank cannot be presented as a whole, but divided into several time periods: 1870-1914, 1924-1942, and 1952 to the present day. The period of inflation that was already underway come the beginning of the First World War and spiraled into hyperinflation in 1922 (at the climax of the fall in monetary value in November 1923 US$ 1 = 4.2 billion Marks) was only halted with the conversion to the German Rentenmark and later the Reichsmark. The decade after the Second World War must likewise be discounted, for during this time the Allies split the bank into several divisions, only reestablished as a centrally-managed financial institution in 1957.
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