Frankfurt’s Festhalle Messe celebrated its centenary last week, making it an appropriately historic setting for Deutsche Bank’s general meeting as new board members including Michael Cohrs and Anshu Jain faced shareholders for the first time, and chief executive Josef Ackermann drew inspiration from the German Romanticist movement and nineteenth century philosopher Georg Hegel in discussing the financial crisis.

Even before Ackermann took to the stand this morning, Deutsche's supervisory board chairman Clemens Börsig addressed shareholders at the packed venue both to praise Ackermann for his steering of the bank through the crisis and to introduce Ackermann's new quartet of colleagues on the management board.