Business > Deutsche Bank faces Daimler probe-paper

The bank reduced its stake in DaimlerChrysler to 6.9 percent from 10.4 percent in late July following news that Juergen Schrempp would step down as DaimlerChrysler chief executive at the end of the year, which pushed the firm's stock up 10 percent.

"There is a conspicuous development," Welt am Sonntag quoted BaFin President Jochen Sanio as saying in an article circulated before publication on Sunday.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment, while BaFin could not be immediately reached. The newspaper did not say why BaFin might investigate share trades made after the Schrempp announcement.

The watchdog has launched a formal investigation into possible insider trading in Daimler shares before Schrempp's resignation. BaFin has said it had concrete indications of improper deals in the firm's stock before Schrempp's shock announcement.

On Thursday, German prosecutors probing possible insider trading searched homes and offices of four suspects, including two of the carmaker's staff.

The Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper said DaimlerChrysler might have announced Schrempp's exit too late. Internal hints of the resignation had already intensified up to five weeks before the firm's statement to the German stock market, it said, quoting a letter by Stuttgart prosecutors.

2005-09-04