Veteran investment banker Anshu Jain dies

Deutsche Bank's former India-born co-CEO Anshu Jain dies after battle with cancer.  Jain has been credited with helping build Deutsche Bank’s investment-banking business, making the once sleepy German bank into a global trading powerhouse.

Deutsche Bank said in a statement on Saturday that it “mourns the death of its former Co-CEO Anshu Jain, who passed away in the early hours of Saturday at the age of 59 after a long, serious illness.” Jaipur born Jain was diagnosed with duodenal cancer in 2017.

Anshu received his Bachelor's degree in Economics, with honors, from the University of Delhi and his MBA in Finance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was among the growing number of Indian-origin executives assuming leadership roles at global corporations when he became the Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank in 2012, having first joined in 1995 to build the bank’s nascent markets business.

When Jain became co-CEO in 2012 alongside Jürgen Fitschen, the investment-banking division he ran accounted for about 75% of the bank’s profits. 

But the bank’s risk-taking and loose spending on banker bonuses backfired in the wake of the financial crisis, making Deutsche Bank a primary target for global regulators. The bank paid billions of dollars in fines for selling toxic mortgage-backed securities to investors and for its role in an interest-rate rigging scandal.

Anshu died early Saturday after a five-year battle with cancer, his family said.

Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing said "anyone who worked with Anshu experienced a passionate leader of intellectual brilliance. His energy and loyalty to the bank left a great impression on many of us. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to his wife, his children and his mother. We will honour his memory."