Shock at Deutsche Bank as architect of Numis deal ejected pre-bonus

When Daniel Ross, head of UK investment banking at Deutsche Bank, orchestrated the German bank's £410m acquisition of Numis in October 2023, he was feeling pretty positive about things. Numis had “very sticky relationships” with clients, Ross told the Times. The addition of the bank's 344 people should be pretty positive for cross-selling, he observed.

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15 months later, Ross is leaving Numis's people to manage their very sticky relationships themselves. Global Capital reported on Friday that his job, which morphed into co-head of UK investment banking alongside James Taylor from Numis following the acquisition, is "at risk". Taylor is staying. Ross is not. 

Ross didn't respond to a request to comment for this story, and Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Insiders at the German bank seem to have been unaware of Ross's imminent departure this week, and the manner of his exit seems to have come as a surprise: not only is it close to year-end, but Ross hasn't been allowed to quietly "retire" or "spend time with his family." Instead, Global Capital stated clearly that he's been put at risk of redundancy and targeted outside the context of a broader series of job cuts. "This looks like a case of internal politics, where someone has been briefing against him," says one observer. 

Ross joined Deutsche from Barclays in May 2021, and was trumpeted as an "important hire" who would strengthen the UK business. In October, Ross told Financial News that the business was "underweight" in headcount relative to peers. Before architecting the Numis deal he helped hire Derek Shakespeare, the former head of UK M&A at Barclays, Abid Chaudhri from BNP Paribas, and Ed McBride from Citi, among others. 

Despite the hires, though, and despite the acquisition of Numis, Deutsche has made little progress in the UK league tables. Deutsche Bank ranked 10th for UK investment banking revenues in the first nine months of 2021 according to Dealogic, and was outside the top 10 in the first nine months of 2024.

The implication is that the Deutsche Bank's UK business, which has always been top-heavy, but which became even more so after the Numis acquisition, has decided it doesn't want to pay for all its managing directors. Deutsche Bank people seem to be suffering more than Numis people - and not because Numis people are on guarantees, which are thought to have expired: Chris Byrne and Anna Mills, two managing directors in Deutsche’s corporate broking team, were also let go in the summer. It doesn't help that revenues per head in Deutsche's investment banking business globally are thought to be a lot lower than at rival banks.

Having reverse-taken over Numis, it seems that Deutsche's UK bankers are now outnumbered and taken-over themselves. Other pre-Numis co-heads may also want to watch their backs. There are a few: Oliver Ives is co-head of M&A, for example; Mark Hankinson is co-head of ECM. There may be more changes to come.  

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