Should Deutsche Bank's investment bankers fear Sam Wisnia?
Sam Wisnia is now fully regulated and ready to go at Deutsche Bank. Despite joining in November, the ex-Goldman Sachs partner was only given official clearance to work at the German bank on the 8 January, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Register. Wisnia is therefore finally in a position to fulfill his - potentially ominous - remit.
When Deutsche announced Wisnia's appointment back in October 2014, it said he was joining both as head of fixed income and currencies structuring and as head of strategy analytics for the whole of the corporate banking and securities business. In the latter context, he's tasked with driving 'business performance and resource optimization.'
With Deutsche under pressure to cut costs and restructure its business, it sounds like Wisnia, a quant by training, will be at the forefront of running the stats that determine which businesses Deutsche wants to stay in and which businesses it wants to get out of. Wisnia is also on the global markets executive committee, so the conclusions he reaches are likely to carry a lot of weight.
Deutsche Bank is due to announce its fourth quarter results on Thursday morning. It's full strategy announcement won't come until Q2. By that time Wisnia will have had plenty of time to reach the necessary conclusions.