After a weak year in the mergers and acquisitions business, Deutsche Bank is cutting the bonuses for its investment bankers.

The bonus pool for the past year will shrink by almost ten percent, a person familiar with the situation told the Reuters news agency on Friday. According to the insider, bankers in the issuing and advisory business must expect their bonuses to fall by around 40 percent. Traders in bond trading, on the other hand, were able to enjoy higher earnings thanks to the volatile markets and will receive slightly higher bonuses, the person said. Deutsche Bank declined to comment. The Financial Times first reported on the reduced bonus pool.

Last year, Germany's largest financial institution rewarded managers for a particularly successful 2021 - bonuses increased by 14 percent to 2.1 billion euros. Analysts expect the investment bank to generate a pre-tax profit of around 3.7 billion euros in 2022 - the division had earned a similar amount in 2021. Deutsche Bank plans to present its figures on February 2.

Other major banks are also cutting the investment bank's bonuses. According to insiders, US bank Morgan Stanley is even cutting bonuses by up to 50 percent at its locations in Asia. According to reports in the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs is planning to reduce the bonuses of over 3,000 investment bankers by at least 40 percent.

(Report by Marta Orosz and Tom Sims. Edited by Hans Seidenstücker. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)