Deutsche Bank face shareholder anger over massive loss

Deutsche Bank today told shareholders angered by big losses and scandals at Germany's biggest lender that it was on the path back to growth, but conceded it wasn't quite there yet.

"The whole (management board) team -- with the backing of this supervisory board -- want to put Deutsche Bank back on the road to growth," chief executive John Cryan told his first shareholder meeting since taking up his position last July.

"This journey is demanding. It requires effort, but it will be worth that effort." Groups of shareholders had expressed anger at Deutsche Bank's colossal loss of nearly seven billion euros (USD 7.9 billion) last year and at the group's apparent slow progress in resolving a large number of scandals and litigation cases.

"We are not yet where we want to be," said supervisory board chief Paul Achleitner.

"But our objectives are right, our path has been clearly defined and the new management board is making good progress along this path. This gives me confidence -- me, and all of us here on the supervisory board," he said.

Cryan took over as co-chief executive from Anshu Jain in the summer of 2015 alongside Juergen Fitschen.

But Fitschen is stepping down at the end of the shareholder meeting, leaving Cryan in sole charge.

Deutsche Bank reaffirmed its ambition of bringing down annual costs by five billion euros to below 22 billion euros by 2018.

Deutsche Bank is currently entangled in a web of legal woes, facing as many as 6,000 different litigation cases, the provisions for which helped push it to a record loss of 6.8 billion euros last year.

At the end of April, the bank warned that this year would also be a difficult year.