Deutsche boss says sorry for report criticising German government

The boss of Germany's largest lender, Deutsche Bank, has been forced to apologise to politicians days before a general election after one of its analysts criticised the government with views that were "not authorised" by its management.

Christian Sewing has told German officials that the bank did not share the views of an analyst, Jan Schildbach, who dismissed a “failed” government-backed pension system in a note earlier this week, Bloomberg reported.

Mr Sewing's charm offensive comes as Germans go to the polls in just over a week. The election will decide a successor to Angela Merkel, who has been chancellor since 2005.

The Deutsche chief executive's attempt to smooth relations highlights how important it is for the bank to be on good terms with government officials after a rocky few years for the lender.

Olaf Scholz, the finance minister from the Social Democratic Party, is leading the polls and has been credited with bringing the Left back from the political dead.

Images of him and the slogan “Scholz will tackle it” have been emblazoned on posters across the country.

Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said: "He’s easily the most experienced, sober and Merkel-like candidate."

Mr Scholz's ministry oversees BaFin, the German financial regulator, and plays a role in forming many of the rules criticised by the analyst.

Other excerpts of Mr Schildbach’s note reported in German media contained the assertion that Germany was “the only industrialised country” to have had so many financial scandals in the past 15 years and that BaFin cut “such a bad and sometimes dysfunctional picture”.

A spokesman for Deutsche Bank said: "On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank Research published a report on the status of the financial sector in Germany. In this report the author expresses his views and opinions. These are not shared by Deutsche Bank and were not authorised by Deutsche Bank Research leadership.

"In particular, Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Bank Research distance themselves from the inappropriate criticism in substance and tone of regulators and policymakers which were expressed in the research report."

Mr Schildbach and BaFin both declined to comment.