Deutsche Bank says "Sorry" on german newspapers

Deutsche Bank has apologised to Germans for its costly mistakes, the ad signed by CEO John Cryan on behalf of the bank’s top management, ran Saturday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung and several newspapers.

"Serious mistakes were made," reads the advertisement on Saturday, days after the lender announced an annual loss of €1.4 billion in 2016. "We would like to apologize for that."

"Since I became chief executive of Deutsche Bank one-and-a-half years ago, we have had to pay around five billion euros in legal cases largely originating from several years ago," chief executive John Cryan said in the ad.

Germany's biggest bank is still facing about 7000 separate lawsuits and regulatory cases, which analysts say could take years to resolve.

However the lender said that despite ongoing legal troubles it had managed to "end key legal cases."

In December, Deutsche Bank agreed to a $7.2 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department related to its dealings with subprime bonds featuring risky home loans between 2005 and 2007. A global financial crisis developed because of losses on these bonds packaged and sold by major banks.

Other misconduct cases involved rigging interest benchmarks with other banks.

Last week, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $630 million to the United States in penalties for its involvement in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme. The scheme involved Deutsche Bank's New York, Moscow and London branches. The bank was fined an additional $204 million by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority.