‘Finish them’ mail has Deutsche Bank board member in hot water

A member of Deutsche Bank AG’s supervisory board came under fire from lawmakers and the bank itself for allegedly demanding that Wirecard AG “finish” off journalists that had written critical stories about the since-collapsed payments company.

The director, Alexander Schuetz, made the request in an email to Wirecard’s then-Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun in which he also informed the CEO that he had purchased Wirecard shares recently, German lawmaker Jens Zimmermann said at a parliamentary hearing last night.

Schuetz on Friday apologized for the remarks, saying in an email to Bloomberg News that he believed at the time that the allegations against Wirecard were unfounded.

Deutsche Bank’s ties with Wirecard have come under scrutiny as part of a parliamentary probe into the collapse of the payments company. Wirecard filed for insolvency last year in Germany’s biggest postwar accounting scandal, with former executives including Braun in jail or on the run. Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said in testimony late Thursday that he hadn’t been aware of Schuetz’s email.

“As a matter of principle, we do not comment on private statements made by members of the supervisory board,” Deutsche Bank spokesman Joerg Eigendorf said by email. “Irrespective of this, however, both the content and the attitude of the quoted statement are unacceptable – regardless of who it comes from.”

Schuetz is co-founder and CEO of C-Quadrat, the Austrian asset manager that oversaw HNA Group Co.’s investment in the German lender until the Chinese conglomerate sold the stake. He joined Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board in 2017 and has remained on the board after HNA’s exit.

Schuetz is also the largest shareholder of the cyber security firm Cyan AG, which issued a profit warning after the Wirecard collapse.