Asoka Wöhrmann, the DWS boss facing a widening scandal

“Congratulations!!!,” Asoka Wöhrmann wrote in a 2018 e-mail to key folks behind the creation of automotive finance start-up Auto1 Fintech. “Thanks for spending million tons of power to make this deal occur.”

The message by Wöhrmann, then Deutsche Financial institution’s most senior retail banker in Germany and now chief govt of the nation’s prime asset supervisor DWS, has come again to hang-out him as a scandal grows over his use of personal messages for enterprise functions.

Two days earlier than the 56-year-old introduced report DWS outcomes for 2021 and gave an upbeat outlook, the Monetary Occasions reported that Wöhrmann had used his private e-mail extensively for work messages.

The FT additionally uncovered a cost of €160,000 to Wöhrmann from a Deutsche Financial institution consumer who took half within the Auto1 Fintech talks, later defined by each as a part of a failed try to purchase a Porsche.

The matter escalated rapidly. Deutsche Financial institution widened an inside investigation, as the usage of use of non-public e-mail is strictly forbidden on the lender.

The ECB is wanting into governance points round Wöhrmann, an individual accustomed to the matter informed the FT on Friday. A former DWS govt has flagged the alleged intensive use of WhatsApp by Wöhrmann and different DWS executives in a whistleblower criticism to Germany’s monetary watchdog BaFin. The ECB and BaFin declined to remark.

All this comes on prime of investigations by US legislation enforcement authorities and BaFin into alleged greenwashing flagged final yr by DWS’s fired head of ESG, Desiree Fixler. A Frankfurt employment courtroom on Monday dismissed Fixler’s unfair dismissal lawsuit.

Wöhrmann, who declined to remark, seems to be taking issues in his stride. “Sideline noise is not going to maintain us from doing what we’ve got to do to remain profitable,” he informed analysts on Thursday whereas praising “new information for internet inflows, revenues and revenue”.

Following the FT report, DWS informed different media that Wöhrmann had in latest months been the goal of a “malicious marketing campaign” during which “deceptive and selective” info was leaked to “assault and badmouth him”.

The corporate, which has €928bn in property underneath administration, stated Wöhrmann had additionally acquired racist and threatening letters, together with one in December containing white powder that compelled the evacuation of components of the DWS’s headquarters in Frankfurt.

“I cannot be intimidated,’ Wöhrmann informed analysts. “And I cannot be deterred from my job.”

Born in Sri Lanka in 1965, Wöhrmann moved to Germany aged 11 and grew up in a German household, who adopted him.

A educated economist, he joined DWS as a portfolio supervisor in 1998 after finishing his PhD. He grew to become as specialist on Japan because it reeled from the fallout of a burst property bubble, joking that he was “assigned these duties that no one else needed to do”. He ultimately grew to become international head of overseas change, then chief funding officer.

In 2015 he briefly left to take cost of Deutsche Financial institution’s German retail banking enterprise, the place he closed down one in 4 branches, together with the one the place his boss Christian Stitching had began as a trainee. “I hope you’ll forgive me for this,” he informed his boss on the time.

When Wöhrmann returned to DWS in November 2018 to interchange hapless predecessor Nicolas Moreau, employees in Frankfurt had been enthusiastic, bursting into applause even earlier than Wöhrmann had stated a phrase at his fist city corridor assembly as CEO.

“He’s doing this job with lots of enthusiasm and authenticity, and is ready to encourage our employees,” Stated Zanjani, the pinnacle of DWS’s employees’ council, informed the Monetary Occasions, including that DWS was “a proud firm and he introduced us again to the place we belong”.

From an investor perspective, Wöhrmann’s tenure has been profitable. DWS shares are up 47 per cent since he took the helm, in contrast with a 35 per cent rise at majority-owner Deutsche Financial institution and regardless of the US greenwashing investigation that worn out €1bn in market capitalisation.

In an early coup, Wöhrmann persuaded Tim Albrecht, a star fund supervisor who had been appointed to a prime position at non-public financial institution Berenberg, to stick with DWS.

The brand new CEO launched into a radical cost-cutting plan and fired about 50 managing administrators, declaring that “the steps are being swept from the highest”. Daring to oust management-level employees “did win him the respect of many rank and file staff”, stated Zanjani.

Some senior staff who left DWS have a much less benign view, describing Wöhrmann as useless, quick-tempered and Machiavellian, and saying he surrounds himself with a small circle of yes-men.

“Loyalty is extra essential than high quality,” one former colleague stated.

Wöhrmann’s report is just not unblemished. An try and merge with the asset administration arm of UBS failed in 2019. A punt by Albrecht on Wirecard value DWS €600m when the funds group went bust.

For now, nevertheless, Deutsche Financial institution’s CEO Christian Stitching stands by the boss of an important division that ties up little fairness and generates secure earnings.

“Asoka Wöhrmann has performed an impressive job, for which I’m very, very grateful,” he informed journalists on Thursday. “That’s why I don’t have any doubts.”