Deutsche Bank's London fixed income traders wonder who got the €18m

As we noted yesterday, Deutsche Bank's newly published annual report revealed that someone at the bank received €18m in compensation last year. It was not a member of the executive committee. 

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The payment, which was the largest at Deutsche for at least six years, has prompted intense speculation at the German bank as to the identity of the recipient.

Initial suggestions were that it was likely to be either Chetankumar Shah, who runs credit trading, or Ram Nayak, who runs the markets business in the investment bank. 

However, some senior insiders say this is unlikely as both Shah and Nayak are in the sorts of management roles that command pay that is very high, but not unusually so. They are more likely to have been among the nine people who received €8-11m. The €18m is instead thought to have gone to an unusually successful trader, who is probably sitting in the London credit trading business. 

Who? Deutsche's top London credit professionals include the likes of Panayiotis Stergiou, the global head of the institutional clients group, Daniil Bunimovich, the head of emerging market trading, or Anirban Lahiri, the head of credit solutions. Any or none could be the recipients of the windfall. Deutsche Bank, needless to say, is not commenting.

One person who has not received the €18m is Mark Spehn, Deutsche's star distressed debt trader, who left Deutsche Bank last summer and is now suing the bank for discrimination and firing him after he blew the whistle. 

Deutsche Bank is no stranger to generous pay. It famously paid former rates trader Christian Bittar a £90m bonus in 2008. This year, rate traders at Deutsche say bonuses were poor and the €18m almost certainly went to credit instead. 

Despite paying €18m, as a European-regulated bank, Deutsche is still curtailed by the bonus cap and will remain so. This implies that the recipient of the €18m received a salary of at least €6m. Sources at the bank say Deutsche sidesteps the cap by spreading high bonuses for successful traders over multiple years. 

Someone there may therefore get paid €18m for 2025 as well. If you think you know who this is, please let us know using the contact details below.

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