SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) eliminated whole teams at its Asian operations on Monday, as the German lender began axing 18,000 jobs globally in one of the biggest overhauls at an investment bank since the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The lender announced the job losses on Sunday as part of a restructuring plan that will ultimately cost 7.4 billion euros ($8.31 billion) and see it undo years of work aimed at making its investment bank a major force on Wall Street.

As part of the overhaul, the bank will scrap its global equities business and cut some operations in its fixed income - an area traditionally regarded as one of its strengths.

Deutsche Bank gave no geographic breakdown for the job cuts, though the bulk are widely expected to fall in Europe and the United States. The global day on Monday, however, began with cuts in Sydney, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.

Bankers seen leaving Deutsche Bank’s Sydney office on Monday said they had been laid off, but declined to be identified as they were due to return later to sign redundancy packages.

One person with knowledge of the bank’s Australia operations said its four-strong equity capital markets (ECM) team was being disbanded. The person also said most of its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team was not affected.

Entire teams in sales and trading are losing their jobs too, according to several Deutsche bankers.

Regionally, Deutsche used to regularly rank among the top 10 banks in league tables for ECM deals, but it has slipped in recent years, hitting 17th last year and 18th in 2019, Refinitiv data showed. So far this year, it ranks 8th regionally for M&As.

Deutsche had some 4,700 staff at its main regional offices in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, showed factsheets on its website.

Its investment banking team for the Asia-Pacific region numbered about 300 people before the cuts, of which 10% to 15% will be laid off, almost all in its equity capital markets division, according to a senior Asia banker with direct knowledge of the plans.

One Hong Kong-based equities trader who had been laid off said the mood was “pretty gloomy” as people were called individually to meetings.

“(There are a) couple of rounds of chats with HR and then they give you this packet and you are out of the building,” the trader said.

Several workers were seen leaving the offices holding large envelopes with the bank’s logo. Three employees took a picture of themselves beside a large Deutsche Bank logo outside and hugged each other before hailing a taxi.

“If you have a job for me please let me know. But do not ask questions,” said a person who confirmed he was employed at Deutsche Bank, but declined to comment further.

A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment on specific departures, saying the bank would be communicating directly with employees.

“We understand these changes affect people’s lives profoundly and we will do whatever we can to be as responsible and sensitive as possible implementing these changes,” she said.

Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing, who now aims to focus on the bank’s more stable revenue streams, said on Sunday that it was the most fundamental transformation of the bank in decades. “This is a restart,” he said.

“We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient,” he wrote to staff.

The bank will set up a so-called bad bank to wind-down unwanted assets, with a value of 74 billion euros of risk-weighted assets.

Sewing will now represent the investment bank on the board in a shift that illustrates the division’s waning influence.

The CEO had flagged extensive restructuring in May when he promised shareholders “tough cutbacks” to the investment bank. This followed Deutsche’s failure to agree a merger with rival Commerzbank AG (CBKG.DE).

On Monday Werner Steinmueller, the banks’ Asia-Pacific Chief Executive told staff in a memo, seen by Reuters, that the bank was focusing on its core strengths.

“The new investment bank will be smaller but more resilient, with a focus on our financing, capital markets, advisory services and sales and trading businesses,” he said in the memo.

One senior Deutsche banker, who still had his job, stressed the bank was not giving up on deals it was currently working on, but questioned how well its slimmed down franchise could compete in future.

“Our ECM business has to be scaled back but it’s not like everything will happen in one day,” he said. “The biggest question for us is where do we go from here if we don’t offer the whole suite of products. Will clients stick with us or is the game over?” </s> FRANKFURT/SYDNEY/HONG KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank laid off staff from Sydney to New York on Monday as it began to slash 18,000 jobs in a 7.4 billion euro ($8.3 billion) “reinvention” that will lead to yet another annual loss, a plan that knocked its already battered shares.

Germany’s largest lender said on Sunday it will scrap its global equities unit and cut some of fixed income operation in a retreat from a long-held ambition to make its struggling investment bank, with 38,000 staff, a force on Wall Street. Deutsche Bank has almost 91,500 staff around the world.

Its shares erased early gains and closed down 5.4% in Frankfurt after its finance chief flagged “significant uncertainty” over breaking even in 2020. Its bonds also fell. U.S.-listed shares dropped 5.8%.

Ratings agency Fitch said that the bank’s future credit rating will depend on how successfully it executes the plan.

“The restructuring measures involve large staff cuts and significant leadership changes, which could disrupt the aim to improve core earnings,” it said in a note published Monday.

Hundreds of employees at the bank’s Wall Street office were summoned to the building’s cafeteria on Monday morning to learn their fates, sources within the bank told Reuters. During one-to-one meetings with management and human resources, they were told they were being laid off and informed of their severance terms, the sources said.

One employee outside Deutsche Bank’s office told Reuters that staff in the bank’s equity sales division had been preparing for the worst.

“People have been planning their next moves but it’s a tough market,” the worker said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another U.S. employee, who was told this morning that he would be laid off, said staff had known for the past two weeks that cuts were likely.

Banks have been getting rid of jobs as they automated more equities trading functions, and that could mean fewer job opportunities, industry sources and head hunters say.

Mid-market investment banks may look to hire some individuals, they said. Hedge funds are an unlikely destination since they prefer to hire individuals that have worked at investment firms rather than banks, they added.

Deutsche Bank had been one of the few European banks to maintain a significant presence in the United States after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. However, it has struggled to compete with U.S. rivals, hampered by regulatory investigations and litigation.

The United States had been seen as a likely focus of the cuts although the bank maintained it wants to keep a significant presence, in part to service European corporate clients doing business in the country. However, some shareholders have pushed for a full U.S. retreat.

Deutsche Bank said it remained committed to the United States, its second-biggest market.

“We will retain a significant presence here and remain a close partner to our U.S. clients and to international institutions that want to access the U.S. market,” it said in an emailed statement.

In London, where hundreds of job cuts were expected, Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing said he was “reinventing” the bank, which is expected to post a loss this year. That would put it in the red for four of the past five years after a series of damaging setbacks.

At Deutsche Bank’s investment banking headquarters in London, where the bank employs 8,000 people, several said they were leaving for the last time, though few were keen to talk.

“I was terminated this morning. There was a very quick meeting and that was it,” said one information technology employee, who had been working on a project for more than two years.

The nearby Balls Brothers pub filled up with laid-off staff.

Bankers leaving Deutsche Bank’s Sydney, Australia, office also said they had been fired but declined to be identified because they were returning later to sign severance packages.

JP Morgan analysts called the plan “bold and for the first time not half-baked” but questioned the credibility of execution, revenue growth and employee motivation.

Rating agency Moody’s said there were “significant challenges” to executing the plan swiftly, adding it would keep its negative outlook.

“It’s a risky manoeuvre, but if it succeeds, it has the potential to bring the bank back on course,” said a person close to one of the top 10 shareholders.

Founded in 1870, Deutsche Bank has long been a major source of finance and advice for German companies seeking to expand abroad or raise money through the bond or equity markets.

Big cuts to its investment bank reverse a decades-long expansion that began with its purchase of Morgan Grenfell in London in 1989 and continued a decade later with a takeover of Bankers Trust in the United States.

The investment bank generated about one-half of Deutsche Bank’s revenues but is also volatile. CEO Sewing, who flagged the restructuring in May after a failed merger attempt with Commerzbank, wants to focus on more stable sources of revenue.

“We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient,” Sewing wrote in a note to staff on Sunday.

As part of the overhaul, Deutsche Bank will set up a so-called “bad bank” to wind down unwanted assets, with 74 billion euros ($83 billion) of risk-weighted assets.

Deutsche Bank did not give details on the job cuts, but said they would be spread around the globe, including in Germany.

In Sydney, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, where Deutsche Bank used to rank among the top 10 in league tables for equity capital market (ECM) deals, several bankers said entire teams in sales and trading were going.

Deutsche Bank’s Asia-Pacific head of ECM, Jason Cox, left, and ECM teams were disbanded in Japan, Australia and most of Asia, people with direct knowledge of matter said, adding that only a few syndicate bankers, including those working on current deals, will remain.

Deutsche Bank had slipped in recent years in Asia, hitting 17th last year and 18th in 2019, Refinitiv data showed. So far this year, it ranks 8th regionally for merger-and-acquisition activity.

“The new investment bank will be smaller but more resilient, with a focus on our financing, capital markets, advisory services and sales and trading businesses,” Asia-Pacific CEO Werner Steinmueller said in a staff memo.

One laid-off equities trader in Hong Kong said the mood was “pretty gloomy” as people were called into meetings. “They give you this packet and you are out of the building,” he said.

Several workers left offices holding envelopes with the bank’s logo. Three employees took a picture of themselves beside a Deutsche Bank sign outside, hugged and then hailed a taxi.

“If you have a job for me, please let me know. But do not ask questions,” said one Deutsche employee.

One senior banker, still with a job, questioned how well the slimmed-down franchise in Asia would compete.

“Will clients stick with us, or is the game over?” </s> Deutsche Bank plans to cut 18,000 jobs in a sweeping, 7.4 billion euro ($A11.9 billion) overhaul designed to turn around Germany's struggling flagship lender.

The plan represents a major retreat from investment banking by Deutsche Bank, which for years had tried to compete as a major force on Wall Street.

As part of the overhaul, the bank will scrap its global equities business, scale back its investment bank and also cut some of its fixed income operations, an area traditionally regarded as one of its strengths.

The bank will set up a new so-called "bad bank" to wind down unwanted assets, with a value of 74b euros ($A11.9b) of risk-weighted assets.

The depth of the restructuring shows that Deutsche is coming to terms with its failure to keep pace with Wall Street's big hitters such as JP Morgan Chase & Co and Goldman Sachs.

The cuts were foreshadowed on Friday, when the head of Deutsche's investment bank Garth Ritchie agreed to step down.

Chief executive Christian Sewing, who now aims to focus on the bank's more stable revenue streams, said it was the most fundamental transformation of the bank in decades.

"This is a restart," he said.

"We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient," he wrote to staff.

Sewing will now represent the investment bank on the board in a shift that illustrates the division's waning influence.

The chief executive had flagged an extensive restructuring in May when he promised shareholders "tough cutbacks" to the investment bank.

This followed Deutsche's failure to agree a merger with rival Commerzbank.

There were media reports from Reuters and others that Deutsche Bank could cut as many as 20,000 jobs - more than one in five of its 91,500 employees.

The bank said it would reduce headcount to 74,000 by 2022.

Deutsche Bank gave no geographic breakdown for the job cuts. The equities business is focused largely in New York and London.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter said job cuts would be distributed around the world, including in Germany.

The board met on Sunday to agree the proposed changes, one of the biggest announcements of job cuts at a major investment bank since 2011 when HSBC said it would axe 30,000 jobs.

Deutsche said it expects a 2.8b euro ($A4.5b) net loss in the second quarter as a result of restructuring charges and a loss for the full year. </s> SYDNEY/HONG KONG, July 8 (Reuters) - Whole teams in Deutsche Bank's Asian operations were told their positions were gone on Monday, as the lender began axing 18,000 jobs globally in one of the biggest overhauls to an investment bank since the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The German bank launched the restructuring on Sunday in Europe, outlining a plan that will ultimately cost 7.4 billion euros ($8.31 billion) and see it dramatically scale back its investment bank - a major retreat after years of working to compete as a major force on Wall Street.

As part of the overhaul, the bank will scrap its global equities business and also cut some of its fixed income operations - an area traditionally regarded as one of its strengths.

While the bulk of the 18,000 job losses are widely expected to fall in Europe and the United States, on Monday the cuts also hit offices from Sydney to Hong Kong.

Deutsche Bank gave no geographic breakdown for the job cuts when it announced the plan on Sunday.

Bankers in Sydney seen leaving the lender's offices on Monday confirmed they worked for Deutsche Bank and were being laid off, but declined to give their names as they were due to return later to sign redundancy packages.

One person with knowledge of the bank's operations in Australia said its four-strong equity capital markets team was being let go, but that most of its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team would not be immediately affected.

Deutsche had some 4,700 staff in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, showed factsheets on its website.

Its investment banking team for the Asia-Pacific region numbered about 300 people before the cuts, and 10% to 15% will be laid off - almost all in its equity capital markets division, according to a senior Asia banker with direct knowledge of the plans.

In Hong Kong, a group of three upset-looking bank employees took a picture of themselves besides a large Deutsche Bank logo outside the lender's office, hugging each other before hailing a waiting taxi.

One Hong Kong-based equities trader who had been laid off said the mood was "pretty gloomy" as people were called individually to meetings.

"(There are a) couple of rounds of chats with HR and then they give you this packet and you are out of the building," the trader said.

Several workers were seen leaving the offices holding large envelopes with the bank's logo.

"If you have a job for me please let me know. But do not ask questions," said one who confirmed he was employed at Deutsche Bank, but declined to comment further.

A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment on specific departures, saying the bank would be communicating directly with employees.

"We understand these changes affect people's lives profoundly and we will do whatever we can to be as responsible and sensitive as possible implementing these changes," she said.

Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing, who now aims to focus on the bank's more stable revenue streams, said on Sunday that it was the most fundamental transformation of the bank in decades. "This is a restart," he said.

"We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient," he wrote to staff.

The bank will set up a so-called bad bank to wind-down unwanted assets, with a value of 74 billion euros of risk-weighted assets.

Sewing will now represent the investment bank on the board in a shift that illustrates the division's waning influence.

The CEO had flagged extensive restructuring in May when he promised shareholders "tough cutbacks" to the investment bank. This followed Deutsche's failure to agree a merger with rival Commerzbank AG. </s> Deutsche Bank has started cutting jobs in London as part of a plan to reduce its global workforce by 18,000 to try to revive its ailing fortunes.

Germany’s biggest bank employs about 7,500 people in London, which is one of the hubs for the equities trading division it is scrapping.

Some staff in London were reported to be in tears after hearing their jobs had gone. Workers started leaving the bank’s building in the City around 10am carrying bags of belongings. Some said they were told their passes would stop working at 11am.

A male contractor on his way into the building in Great Winchester Street said: “The bank is not doing well so they have to do something to get back up and running.”

The jobs being cut over three years make up 20% of Deutsche’s global workforce and will hit its investment bank hard. The chief executive, Christian Sewing, promised “tough cutbacks” to the investment bank in May as part of €1bn (£880m) of cost reductions – the latest round in a series of cuts.

Deutsche Bank announced the job cuts on Sunday but gave no breakdown of where they would take place. The cuts are likely to be heaviest in Europe and the US where its investment bank employs thousands of people.

The cull started in the Asia Pacific region, with employees being let go in Sydney and Hong Kong. A Hong Kong equities trader told Reuters the mood was gloomy as people were called individually to meetings.

“[There are a] couple of rounds of chats with HR and then they give you this packet and you are out of the building,” the trader said.

The cuts will undo decades of expansion as Deutsche tried to compete with Wall Street firms in investment banking. Deutsche has struggled to cope with extra costs imposed by regulators since the financial crisis, turning its once powerful investment bank into a major burden.

Deutsche has also suffered from a string of scandals caused by lax controls during the boom years and has come under scrutiny over its business dealings with Donald Trump.

Sewing said he regretted the cuts but he believed the bank had tried to do too much and had to cut back to revive itself. He said the investment bank would rely less on sales and trading of shares and fixed-income products to make it viable.

“We tried to compete in nearly every area of the banking market at the same time,” Sewing said on a conference call. </s> FRANKFURT/SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank laid off staff in Asia on Monday as it began cutting 18,000 jobs as part of a 7.4 billion euro ($8.3 billion) “reinvention” set to tip Germany’s largest lender into yet another annual loss.

In a retreat from a long-held ambition to make its struggling investment bank, which employs 38,000 people, a force on Wall Street, Deutsche Bank said on Sunday it would scrap its global equities operations and cut some in fixed income.

Shares in Deutsche Bank, which has almost 91,500 staff around the world, were slightly lower in Frankfurt as the bank’s finance chief said there was “significant uncertainty” whether it would break even in 2020.

Chief Executive Christian Sewing told journalists from the bank’s London office, where many of the cuts are expected, that he was “doing nothing short of reinventing” Deutsche Bank, which will have been in the red for four out of the past five years as it dealt with a series of setbacks.

Bankers seen leaving Deutsche Bank’s Sydney office on Monday said they had been laid off, but declined to be identified as they were due to return later to sign redundancy packages. Sewing said job cuts would continue in London and New York.

JP Morgan analysts called the plan “bold and for the first time not half-baked” but questioned the credibility of execution, revenue growth and employee motivation.

Ratings agency Moody’s said Deutsche Bank faced “significant challenges” to executing the plan swiftly and said it would keep its negative outlook on the bank.

“It’s a risky maneuver, but if it succeeds, it has the potential to bring the bank back on course,” a person close to one of the top 10 biggest shareholders said.

Deutsche Bank gave no geographic breakdown for the job cuts, although the bulk are expected in Europe and the United States.

In Sydney, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region the working day began with cuts and several Deutsche bankers said entire teams in sales and trading were going.

A person with knowledge of the bank’s Australia operations said its four-strong equity capital markets (ECM) team was being disbanded, but most of its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team was not immediately affected.

Deutsche Bank used to rank among the top 10 banks in league tables for ECM deals in Asia, but had slipped in recent years, hitting 17th last year and 18th in 2019, Refinitiv data showed. So far this year, it ranks 8th regionally for M&A activity.

Deutsche had some 4,700 staff at its main regional offices in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, factsheets on its website showed.

Its investment banking team for the Asia-Pacific region had about 300 people before the cuts, of which 10% to 15% will be laid off, almost all in its ECM division, said a senior Asia banker with direct knowledge of the plans.

One laid off equities trader in Hong Kong said the mood was “pretty gloomy” as people were called in to meetings. “They give you this packet and you are out of the building,” he said.

Several workers left offices holding envelopes with the bank’s logo. Three employees took a picture of themselves beside a Deutsche Bank logo outside, hugged and then hailed a taxi.

“If you have a job for me please let me know. But do not ask questions,” said one Deutsche employee.

A spokeswoman would not comment on details but said the bank would be “as sensitive as possible implementing these changes”.

“We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient,” Sewing wrote in a note sent to staff on Sunday.

The bank will set up a so-called bad bank to wind-down unwanted assets, with 74 billion euros of risk-weighted assets.

Sewing will represent the investment bank on the board in a shift that illustrates the division’s waning influence.

The CEO flagged the restructuring in May, promising shareholders “tough cutbacks” to the investment bank. It followed Deutsche’s failure to agree a merger with rival Commerzbank AG.

“The new investment bank will be smaller but more resilient, with a focus on our financing, capital markets, advisory services and sales and trading businesses,” Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Werner Steinmueller said in a memo to staff.

One senior banker, still in a job, questioned how well the slimmed down franchise could compete.

“Will clients stick with us or is the game over?” </s> Good Monday morning. (Want this by email? Sign up here.)

Deutsche Bank’s painful self-help plan begins

The troubled German lender unveiled its long-awaited reorganization plan yesterday, which involves eliminating thousands of jobs and severely reducing its global ambitions. But is it too little, too late?

The bank plans to cut 18,000 jobs and shrink its global equities business. Top executives will leave, including its investment banking chief, and $300 billion worth of assets will be hived off in a “bad bank” to be sold off over time. The layoffs have already begun.

The firm will refocus its efforts on serving European companies and retail-banking customers, pulling back from nearly two decades of trying to compete with Wall Street giants. But its C.E.O., Christian Sewing, said this morning that the U.S. remains a core market for the bank.

The plan will cost the lender 7.4 billion euros, or $8.3 billion, in severance payments and other expenses through 2022. Dividends will be suspended for 2019 and 2020. </s> The sun reflected in the facade of the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, July 8, 2019. The bank wouldn’t give a geographical breakdown of the about 18.000 job cuts until 2020 and said there was no geographical concentration of job losses. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

BERLIN (AP) — The radical and painful restructuring of Germany’s Deutsche Bank, which is cutting 18,000 jobs, is the end of a long, failed attempt to compete with the global investment banking giants that left it overextended.

The bank plan unveiled Sunday aims to go “back to our roots” by refocusing on traditional strengths like serving corporate customers and wealthy individuals and cutting down on its stock-trading business and fixed-income investments.

Investors gave a wary response on Monday, however, pushing shares down 5% at 6.82 euros ($7.68) in Frankfurt.

CEO Christian Sewing said the job cuts have already begun and will last until 2022, though he wouldn’t give a geographical breakdown.

Deutsche Bank had nearly 91,500 employees at the end of March, about 41,600 of them in Germany. Many of its investment banking activities are carried out in New York and London.

“This is a rebuilding which, in a way, also takes us back to our roots,” Sewing said in a message to staff.

Analysts say the overhaul is the bank’s long-needed reckoning with the failure of its expansion plan.

Deutsche Bank’s move into investment banking dates back to 1989, when it took over Morgan Grenfell, and the 1999 takeover of Bankers Trust. The division helped drive strong profits in the 2000s and was part of an ambition to become one of the global banking giants, like JPMorgan or HSBC.

But the expansion, and the global financial crisis around 2008, also helped generate its subsequent problems.

Deutsche Bank wrestled for years with high costs, weak profits, and a low share price. It also paid billions in fines and settlements related to behavior before and after the global financial crisis.

Analysts expect Deutsche Bank’s departure to be a net benefit for the U.S.-based investment banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase. Competition between the big Wall Street firms for business has been intense for years, and has only gotten worse in recent years as fewer companies are using traditional financial services to go public or issue debt.

The end of Deutsche Bank’s commodity and bond trading operations will also be a boon for the banks, as trading will likely move to the banks which already specialize in it, like Citigroup, Goldman and JPMorgan.

The bad headlines continued this year when two U.S. congressional committees subpoenaed Deutsche Bank documents as part their investigations into President Donald Trump and his company. Deutsche Bank was one of the few banks willing to lend to Trump after a series of corporate bankruptcies and defaults starting in the early 1990s.

The Frankfurt-based bank went three straight years without an annual profit before earning 341 million euros for 2018. Sewing took over last year, promising faster restructuring after predecessor John Cryan was perceived to have moved too slowly.

“We tried to compete in nearly every area of the banking market at the same time,” Sewing told investors on Monday. “We simply spread ourselves too thin.”

Earlier this year, the bank entered talks to merge with German rival Commerzbank, which had also been ailing since the global financial crisis. But the talks failed in April amid concerns that a merger would be too complicated and costly.

That left open the question of what strategy Deutsche Bank could pursue to make its business leaner and more profitable.

Previous shake-up attempts have been “too little, too late,” said Neil Wilson, an analyst for Markets.com in London.

“Now it’s the right medicine, it just should have been taken a few years ago,” Wilson said. He added that some questions remain about how the bank aims to grow revenues once it has restructured, and that seems reflected in the investors’ sell-off of the shares on Monday.

Philip Augar, a British-based banking expert and former equities broker, told the BBC that Deutsche Bank was embarking on a spectacular reversal of the strategy that began with the 1999 Bankers Trust acquisition.

“Their ambition was to challenge the Wall Street giants. And for about decade, it looked as though they’d pulled it off,” he said, with the bank “a serious player on Wall Street and in the City” in the 2000s.

But things went wrong in the financial crisis as Deutsche Bank cut slowly and modestly while others “retreated radically and drastically, and more or less, instantly,” he added.

“They’ve been limping along for the last few years and I suppose this day had to come,” he said.

AP Business Reporter Ken Sweet contributed to this report from New York. </s> FRANKFURT/SYDNEY/HONG KONG, July 8 (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank shares rose on Monday as it launched one of the biggest overhauls of its investment bank since the financial crisis by cutting 18,000 jobs around the world, starting the day with cuts in Asia.

The lender announced the job losses on Sunday as part of a restructuring plan that will cost 7.4 billion euros ($8.3 billion) and see it undo years of work that had aimed to make its investment bank a major force on Wall Street.

Shares in Deutsche Bank opened up more than 3% in Frankfurt to reach their highest value since May 2.

Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing, who has called the shake-up a "restart" for the bank, is due to speak to the media initially and then address analysts later on Monday.

Deutsche said the restructuring would push the bank into a loss this year, meaning it will have been in the red four out of the past five years. It was unclear when it would return to profit.

Analysts at JPMorgan called the plan "bold and for the first time not half-baked" but said questions remained, including about credibility of execution, revenue growth details and employee motivation.

Ratings agency Moody's said the bank faced "significant challenges" to executing the plan swiftly and said it would keep its negative outlook on the flagship German lender.

"It's a risky manoeuvre, but if it succeeds, it has the potential to bring the bank back on course," said a person close to one of the top 10 biggest shareholders.

Deutsche Bank gave no geographic breakdown for the job cuts, though the bulk are widely expected to fall in Europe and the United States. The global working day on Monday began with cuts in Sydney, Hong Kong and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.

Bankers seen leaving Deutsche Bank'sSydney office on Monday said they had been laid off, but declined to be identified as they were due to return later to sign redundancy packages.

One person with knowledge of the bank's Australia operations said its four-strong equity capital markets (ECM) team was also being disbanded. But the person also said most of its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team was not immediately affected.

Entire teams in sales and trading were losing their jobs too, according to several Deutsche bankers.

Regionally, Deutsche used to rank among the top 10 banks in league tables for ECM deals, but it had slipped in recent years, hitting 17th last year and 18th in 2019, Refinitiv data showed. So far this year, it ranks 8th regionally for M&A activity.

Deutsche had some 4,700 staff at its main regional offices in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore, factsheets on its website showed.

Its investment banking team for the Asia-Pacific region had about 300 people before the cuts, of which 10% to 15% will be laid off, almost all in its ECM division, said a senior Asia banker with direct knowledge of the plans.

One laid off equities trader in Hong Kong said the mood was "pretty gloomy" as people were called in to meetings. "They give you this packet and you are out of the building," he said.

Several workers left offices holding envelopes with the bank's logo. Three employees took a picture of themselves beside a Deutsche Bank logo outside, hugged and then hailed a taxi.

"If you have a job for me please let me know. But do not ask questions," said one Deutsche employee, declining to comment further.

A bank spokeswoman would not comment on specific departures but said the bank would be communicate directly with employees and would be "as responsible and sensitive as possible implementing these changes."

"This is a restart," Sewing said on Sunday, describing the initiative as most fundamental transformation in decades.

"We are creating a bank that will be more profitable, leaner, more innovative and more resilient," he wrote to staff.

The bank will set up a so-called bad bank to wind-down unwanted assets, with 74 billion euros of risk-weighted assets.

Sewing will represent the investment bank on the board in a shift that illustrates the division's waning influence.

The CEO had flagged the restructuring in May, promising shareholders "tough cutbacks" to the investment bank. It followed Deutsche's failure to agree a merger with rival Commerzbank AG .

"The new investment bank will be smaller but more resilient, with a focus on our financing, capital markets, advisory services and sales and trading businesses," Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Werner Steinmueller said in a memo to staff on Monday.

One senior banker, still in a job, questioned how well the slimmed down franchise could compete in future.

"The biggest question for us is where do we go from here if we don't offer the whole suite of products. Will clients stick with us or is the game over?" he said.
Deutsche Bank announces lay-offs – roughly 18,000 job cuts – around the globe as part of a "reinvention", scrapping its global equities and cutting its fixed income operations.