Mon, 16 Dec 2002, 7:14am EST
Deutsche Bank to Close Hanoi Office, Focus on Ho Chi Minh City
By Jason Folkmanis
Hanoi, Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG said it will close its representative office in Hanoi at the end of the year, as Europe's largest bank focuses its Vietnam business on Ho Chi Minh City, the country's financial center.
The German lender, which opened the Hanoi office in 1992, had two employees in the Vietnamese capital. Representative offices can't conduct business transactions.
Deutsche Bank's office in Ho Chi Minh City, which opened as a representative office in 1992 and became a
full branch in 1995, has 48 employees. Ho Chi Minh City is Vietnam's largest and richest city besides being home to the country's stock market, which opened in 2000.
"We reached the view that the service requirements of
our clients and the bank's overall strategic objectives in Vietnam could be best managed from one main office in Ho Chi Minh City'', Lawrence Wolfe, Deutsche Bank Vietnam's chief country officer, said in a statement.
Deutsche's businesses in Vietnam include project financing, advisory and foreign exchange services, according to the bank. Wolfe said the lender remains committed to the development of "Vietnam's financial and capital markets infrastructure''.
Deutsche Bank is restricting travel, prohibiting office relocation moves and banning the use of new consulting agencies in a bid to generate cost savings, Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann and Chief Operating Officer Hermann-Josef Lamberti said in a recent internal memo to the company's 12-member executive committee and to other senior managers.
Earlier this year, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. closed its branch in Vietnam and Thailand's Krung Thai Bank Pcl closed its Vietnam representative office.