Deutsche Bank has slashed its bonus pool by as much as 80 percent amid huge legal bills and major settlements that have sapped funds, a top executive admitted.
The beleaguered bank is instituting “harsh” cuts for about a quarter of its 100,000 employees worldwide, Karl von Rohr, the bank’s chief administrative officer, told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine in an interview published Monday.
The bonus cuts confirm an exclusive report from The Post last month that almost all employees would see drastic downsizing, and that top earners would get an incentive paid out over the next six years.
The bonuses, which will be paid this spring, are for work done in 2016.
Another 5,000 of the bank’s top earners will see an incentive that pays out over six years and is closely linked with the company’s share price, von Rohr added.
While the cuts are the bank’s deepest in recent memory, they aren’t as draconian as what top executives had been considering a month ago, sources had told The Post.
Deutsche Bank already pays many of its foreign employees higher salaries with lower bonuses and other incentive compensation because of European regulations, compensation experts told The Post.
Last month, before the bank settled with the Justice Department for $7.2 billion over its role in the 2008 financial crisis, the bank was planning to not pay bonuses to 90 percent of employees, though it was still being debated at the time, sources said.
The penalty — $3.1 billion in a civil penalty to the DOJ and $4.1 billion in homeowner relief — was in line with what other banks paid, but was about half of what government prosecutors had originally wanted.
The negotiations with the Justice Department were “long and hard,” von Rohr said.
Earlier this month, the bank’s CEO, John Cryan, said the bank was trying to reinstate normal bonuses for 2017 that would be paid out next year.
In the interview, von Rohr disputed rumors that Deutsche Bank was having trouble holding on to its employees, and said that the number of people who have quit in January was lower than normal.
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