Murray Roos to Leave Shrinking Deutsche Bank Prime Finance Unit

Murray Roos, Deutsche Bank’s co-head of Global Prime Finance and co-head of Equities, is planning to leave the bank, according to reports, at a crucial time where it is looking to ‘shrink’ its Prime Finance unit.

According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, Roos is in discussion with Citigroup to join as global head of Equities Sales and Prime Finance Sales. Earlier this month, Citi hired Adam Herrmann from UBS as its new global head of Prime Finance.

Roos named co-head of Deutsche’s Prime Finance unit in 2013, and co-head of European Equities in 2012. He originally joined Deutsche Bank in 1997 before leaving in 2001 to join UBS. He returned to Deutsche Bank in 2007.

Deutsche Bank is planning to significantly shrink its investment bank in the face of higher litigation costs and leverage constraints.

“We have businesses that are still important to our identity and product offering but must shrink. Rates and GLM (global liquidity management), Prime Finance, are all products clients tell us they need but are challenged from a risk provision, balance sheet standpoint. You will see us shrink them yet maintain a critical threshold position,” says Anshu Jain, co-CEO, Deutsche Bank

“We will further reduce repo and long-dated uncleared derivatives.”

Deutsche Bank is planning to shrink its balance sheet by €200 billion, of which €40-50 billion will be through a reduction in clients. This will likely go hand-in-hand with the rescaling of the prime finance unit as pressures on profits have caused banks to re-evaluate their hedge fund clients.

“We’ve talked about exiting client relationships which are not as marginally profitable as overall run-rate, and in [doing] so will save 40 to 50 billion euros,” adds Jain.

The bank is planning to cut costs by €3.5 billion as part of an overall strategy overhaul.

Roos is the latest high profile exit from Deutsche’s prime finance unit, which saw Scott Carter, previously co-head of its North America prime brokerage business, step down in January after serving 20 years at the bank.