FRANKFURT, April 27 (Reuters) - Josef Ackermann agreed to continue as chief executive of Deutsche Bank for another three years after the lender's supervisory board unanimously agreed to request his contract extension, the bank said.
'Dr. Ackermann has given Deutsche Bank strong strategic positioning and steered the bank safely through the crisis. Our performance in the first quarter 2009 is impressive evidence of this,' supervisory board Chairman Clemens Boersig said in a statement late on Monday.
The formal ratification of his extension until the annual shareholder meeting in 2013 will be made at the supervisory board's meeting on July 28, the company said.
Ackermann's previous contract was set to expire in 2010, leaving a question mark over the long-term leadership of Germany's largest listed bank.
Earlier, Reuters reported that Deutsche's board had been pushing to break a deadlock over picking a successor for its chief executive within weeks and that one option was to extend the 61-year-old CEO's existing contract.
Sources with direct knowledge of the matter had said on Monday that Ackermann's preferred candidate was chief risk officer Hugo Banziger. Both are former officers in the Swiss army as well as Credit Suisse bankers.
But Boersig, Deutsche's former finance chief before being hastily appointed chairman, had also tried to position himself as a successor, the sources said.
'There are serious discussions about whether Ackermann stays longer,' one source had said earlier, referring to the expiration of his contract in May 2010.
Deutsche Bank, initially seen as little scarred by the global financial meltdown, has been dragged ever deeper into the market maelstrom.
Ackermann, who initially described the crisis as over for his bank before it had really begun, has chalked up more than 9 billion euros ($11.8 billion) of writedowns as profits shrivel.
Deutsche Bank's stock price closed up 5.3 percent at 43.25 euros, the biggest gainer among German blue chips.
(Additional reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Michael Shields and Steve Orlofsky) ($1=.7611 Euro) Keywords: DEUTSCHEBANK SUCCESSION/ (john.odonnell@reuters.com; +49 1726 785 830) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
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