The CEO of Germany’s leading asset management company, DWS Group, has resigned hours after police stormed the company’s offices in Frankfurt on charges of eco-laundering.
DWS said in a statement on Wednesday morning that Asoka Wöhrmann, CEO since the end of 2018, would resign from June 10, the day after the group’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
He will be replaced by Stefan Hoops, former head of Deutsche Bank, the majority shareholder in DWS, which has an 80 percent stake. Hoops will be replaced in turn by Britain’s David Lynne, who currently runs Deutsche’s corporate business in the Asia-Pacific region.
The executive reshuffle came shortly after some 50 German police officers stormed DWS and Deutsche Bank offices in central Frankfurt on Tuesday as part of an investigation into possible prospect fraud on the asset manager. The search involved Frankfurt prosecutors, federal police and officials from German financial regulator BaFin.
BaFin launched an investigation into DWS last year, following a similar investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which was motivated by allegations from DWS executive Desiree Fixler.
Fixler said the company had made misleading statements in its 2020 annual report on claims that more than half of the group’s $ 900 billion assets were invested using environmental, social and government criteria.
DWS has denied any wrongdoing, but has changed its ESG criteria since Fixler’s revelations. In its 2021 annual report, published in March 2022, DWS recorded only € 115 billion in “ESG assets” for 2021, 75% less than a year earlier, when it stated that € 459 billion in assets were “integrated ESG”.
Shares of the group fell nearly 6 percent on Tuesday after the attack.
Wöhrmann’s resignation in the wake of the eco-laundering attack comes a few months after the Financial Times revealed that Deutsche Bank was investigating a 160,000-euro payment made by a customer to the senior banker when he was the head of the private customer business. lender. The executive said the transfer was part of a failed attempt to buy a Porsche.
Wöhrmann has also been criticized for using a personal e-mail address for business purposes during his stay at Deutsche.
In a statement issued by DWS, Wöhrmann said that he was leaving “to pave the way for a new beginning”, as the allegations made against DWS and me in recent months have become a burden on the company. , as well as for my family “.
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Karl von Rohr, president of DWS, said Wöhrmann had played a “major role” in the bank’s asset management operation in recent years. “Under his leadership, DWS has expanded its market position and performed well in a challenging environment recently,” he said.