Anshu Jain, CEO of Germany’s largest bank Deutsche Bank, is trying to shed the image that investment bankers have in Germany. Practising humility and taking a paycut of 2 million euros seems to be the mantra for Jain. The paycut means that his compensation package is equal to that of his co-CEO Juergen Fitschen. The newspaper Welt am Sonntag claimed in an exclusive story last week that Jain had asked the Deutsche Bank supervisory board at the beginning of 2013 not to pay his bonus for 2012. A Deutsche Bank spokesman said that Jain and Fitschen would get 4.8 million euros each for 2012, docking pay after the bank was forced to restate its earnings due to legal wranglings in the US. 2013.

It has not been very promising and the two CEOs can only hope that the euro does not continue its “rock and roll” this year and effect their pay next year.

The paycut means that Jain is on an equal footing with Fitschen who has worked his way up the more traditional banking sector and has never known the bonus largesse that investment bankers enjoy. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said Jain probably wanted to send the message that both the CEOs play an equally strategic role in the organisation and so took the paycut of his own volition.

The euro crisis

This column started three years after the euro was ushered in and in those halcyon days it was supposed to bring prosperity and peace. But now, the euro appears to be facing one crisis after the other. In fact, the currency can be classified to be in a terminal stage. The elite are still not willing to accept it, and the man on the street has, it appears, had it with the euro.

The online commentators section of German newspaper articles are filled with anti-euro creed and what seems to have upset Germans even more is a new study from the German central bank, Bundesbank. The study shows most Germans are worse off than those in some of the economies that were instrumental in starting the crisis.

Homeless Deutsche

The typical German household is three times less wealthy than its Spanish or Italian counterpart, with southern European households generally having a high level of home ownership in comparison to German households. Only 44 per cent of Germans live in their own houses, compared to Spaniards, more than 80 per cent of whom own the house they live in and so have more private wealth as compared.

The former have always enjoyed the benefits of a good welfare state but that has eroded with time, while the Deutsche are slowly waking up to the fact that owning a house is a safe investment in these turbulent times, where there are no sureties. But they are still lagging behind when it comes to house ownership.

leaving its mark

Bundesbank published the survey of personal finances of 3,500 households as part of a eurozone-wide study of household finances and consumption habits, coordinated by the European Central Bank. The report was leaked to a German newspaper just when the Cyprus bailout negotiations were at a delicate stage and one can be sure that the dissatisfied Germans are a little more dissatisfied since the report leaked. Most Germans are convinced that they are disliked throughout Europe for no reason and that the bailed out states are talking about a German hegemony that the average German does not want to do anything with. And quite a few would be happy to see the deutsche mark(dm) brought back to replace the euro.

The Easter diaries

Today is Easter, but there is no sign of spring and it is colder than last Christmas. I have had to be a bit innovative with organising the egg hunt this year, as a snow covered garden is not the best place to hide chocolates for a little boy to find. And birds and animals are finding the the long winter testing and hard. The website thelocal.de said that biologists are warning that European hares are having trouble keeping their recently born spring broods warm and healthy during the long chill. It doesn’t however prevent Easter bunnies from making an appearance today and most German children would find that the Osterhase (Easter Bunny) has left a trail of chocolate eggs for them and gold foil-wrapped lindt chocolate bunnies with a bell around their neck.

Chocolate war

The bunnies are ubiquitous with Easter, but the owners of the lindt bunny suffered a little setback last week, after the German federal court rejected an appeal by Swiss chocolatier lindt & Sprüngli to protect its gold foil-wrapped Easter bunnies from being imitated by a German rival.

lindt, had been battling Riegelein Confiserie, which makes chocolate bunnies and wraps them in gold foil for the past 12 years. The Swiss chocolate bunny giant had been worried that the small family-owned Riegelein Confiserie chocolate bunny would eat into its profit.

“We are very glad this case has found a happy ending for us after some 12 years,” Peter Riegelein, head of Riegelein Confiserie told the mass-selling Bild newspaper. lindt said it would respect the court’s decision. And now to the real world, where the  Swiss chocolate bunny giant can expect to have record chocolate bunny sales and hope to take upcoming competitors through the legal minefields.