What exactly is Deutsche Bank doing with its equities business in the U.S.?

Deutsche Bank made big headlines last week when the Financial Times published a report indicating that four of the German lender’s 10 biggest shareholders believe the bank should take a bigger knife to its investment bank, particularly in the U.S. A day later, equities head Peter Selman went to social media with a message: “Deutsche Bank is hiring junior talent in equities now! Find out more about these opportunities.”

One could argue the message represented a hardened stance against the reports, particularly considering one source close to the bank told the FT that the firm was committed to the U.S. and that no further cuts were demanded in direct talks with top managers.

Selman included a link to the bank’s equities career page in the post, but there was something missing: the jobs. The links to Deutsche Bank’s internship and graduate programs for global markets in the U.S. lead to a page with the following message: “We are very sorry but it seems that the vacancy you are looking for is no longer available, we are redirecting you to the current Jobs List,” the page read before migrating to another that contained no U.S. equities jobs.

So what exactly are Deutsche Bank’s plans? The bank declined to comment, but a source told us that the link redirect was a technical glitch and not a false promise. The bank is indeed actively recruiting junior talent within equities in the U.S., as Selman said on record twice last year. It appears a broken link popped up at the worst possible time.

Last spring, CEO Christian Sewing vowed to cut 25% of the bank’s equities sales and trading staff globally. Around 1,000 people were cut in the U.S. across different business lines. Come December, Selman said the bank was actually hiring in equities in the U.S. on the junior level and would do “quite a bit more” come 2019. “The decisions we made were sensible but it wasn’t communicated clearly enough,” Selman said, adding that people “took it the wrong way” at the time. But the recent FT shareholder article left open the question whether the junior hiring plan in equities was still on. Apparently it is. Deutsche Bank’s website just needs to catch up. As of publication, the jobs still aren’t there.

UPDATE: Two hours following publication, Deutsche Bank has now added junior U.S. equities jobs to its site.