Deutsche Bank keeps losing the Numis people it spent all that money on
When Deutsche Bank purchased Numis and its 344 bankers for £410m ($548m) in 2023, it was positive about their potential. The purchase would, "unlock a deeper engagement with corporates across the UK," declared Deutsche Bank. "Deutsche Numis will assume a leading position across advisory services, corporate broking, and ECM – including IPOs, research, sales and execution," it added.
Nearly two years later, Deutsche is making headway, but Numis people are also leaving.
The latest exit is Ben Stoop, a managing director at Deutsche Numis, who has resigned to join JPMorgan Cazenove as a corporate broker. Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan declined to comment.
Stoop's exit follows that of Alex Ham, the former co-CEO of Deutsche Numis, who announced last month that he's joining Barclays as global chairman of investment banking.
Ham previously spent 20 years at Numis, where he was latterly co-CEO. Stoop spent 18.5 years there and became an MD in 2007.
Deutsche Numis ejected Daniel Ross, the architect of the Numis deal, in December 2024 before bonuses were paid. Ross had previously been Deutsche's head of UK investment banking, having joined from Barclays in 2021 and his departure seemed to come as a surprise internally.
The exits of Stoop and Ham appear to have been voluntary, though. The follow those of Simon Bowler, Numis's former head of research, who left for Man GLG last year, and Georgios Pilakoutas, a retail banking analyst who went to Lynott Partners.
More disappearances may follow. It's thought that the packages Deutsche paid to lock-in its Numis hires are expiring, and that people are taking this opportunity to escape. One insider suggests the culture is not the best and involves "limited strategy, lots of bureaucracy and a short term focus on cost."
There are some signs of success, though. Dealogic says Deutsche Bank ranked 5th for UK M&A in the first six months of 2025, up from 11th last year.
Deutsche's equity capital markets aspirations appear less fulfilled. In the second half of 2024, the German bank ranked second in the UK for deal value and Jonny Abbott, a director of investment banking at Deutsche Numis, proclaimed that 2025 would be the year that IPOs would bounce back. This hasn't happened, yet.
Deutsche Bank has some experience of people leaving in the UK after making a major acquisition. In Dark Towers, his book on Deutsche Bank's sometimes nefarious history, New York Times journalist David Enrich notes that after DB purchased Morgan Grenfell in 1990 most of Morgan Grenfell's senior bankers left because they didn't like their new employer.
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