FRANKFURT, Nov 25 – German bank Deutsche Bank has issued a stern warning to European companies borrowing from U.S. banks, saying they will be pushed aside when times get tough.
This warning, expressed in an interview with Fabrizio Campelli, a member of the board of directors of Deutsche Bank, is the latest escalation in the battle with US banks for the business of European companies on their own territory.
It comes at a time when the corporate banking unit of Germany’s biggest bank is experiencing a resurgence as it enters the final stretch of a major restructuring.
“A number of European companies are already realizing the risks of not operating with companies with a long-term commitment to the geographies … in which they operate,” he said, without citing any examples.
Campelli, who oversees Deutsche’s corporate division as well as the investment bank that pushed Deutsche through the restructuring, said US banks “tend to swing lending up and down depending on the circumstances.”
“There was evidence that non-German banks in this country withdrew loans while German banks made more loans during the pandemic, in 2020,” he added, again without citing examples.
Last year, five of the biggest US banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup — grabbed a combined 35% share of net interest income with German companies, up from 18% a decade earlier. , according to Dealogic data compiled for Reuters.
Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing recently warned of the “danger” of Europe’s dependence on foreign banks, equating the threat to the region’s reliance on foreign suppliers for energy.