There's been a rush of exits from Deutsche Bank's U.S. equities business

Deutsche Bank's U.S. equities business may, theoretically, be in growth mode, but staff seem to be leaving in large numbers all the same. 

Insiders at Deutsche's New York equities business say that at least six members of the team have quit voluntarily in recent weeks. 

They are: William Harrington (a special situations trader), Katie Stiner (in synthetic sales), Jason McNeace (a vice president who ran DB's dark pool), Chuck Frederick (head of U.S. algo product), Michael Hudson (in synthetic equity trading), and Jackie Lange and Alex Rocha in research sales. 

Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the exits. William Harrington, Katherine Stiner, Jason McNeace, Charles Frederick and Michael Hudson are all still registered with the bank according to FINRA. However, Alex Rocha is registered as leaving on April 5th. Colleagues confirmed that Stiner and McNeace have left, and each of the others was out of office when we called.

Revenues in Deutsche Bank's global equities business declined 12% in 2018. Bloomberg reported in March that Deutsche Bank's U.S. equities business specifically lost $750m last year, which the bank's equities head Peter Selman denied repeatedly in a townhall a few weeks later. At that time, Selman said Deutsche would be making some big hires in equities trading and research and that remaining staff shouldn't be discouraged by colleagues' exits. 

So far, there has been little sign of the hires that Selman said were in the pipeline, although DB is understood to have recruited Mark Blitzer from Citi to work on ETFs. Blitzer joined on March 25th according to FINRA. 

Deutsche Bank equities staff complained of lower bonuses for 2018 when their numbers were revealed in early March. Bonuses were paid into employees' bank accounts on March 14th, so staff are now free to leave.

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