Deutsche Bank newspaper ads say 'sorry'

"Serious mistakes were made," reads the advertisement that ran in several German newspapers on Saturday.

"Since I became chief executive of Deutsche Bank one-and-a-half years ago, we have had to pay around five billion euros 5.4 billion dollars in legal cases largely originating from several years ago," chief executive John Cryan said in the ad.

Cryan admitted that the bank's past conduct "not only cost us money, but also our reputation and trust."

Historic legal cases

In December, Deutsche Bank agreed to a $7.2 billion (6.6 billion euros) settlement with the US Justice Department over its dealings in opaque bonds based on home loans in 2005-2007. Losses on such bonds packaged and sold by major banks helped start the global financial crisis.

The lender is still facing about 7,000 separate lawsuits and regulatory cases, which analysts say could take years to resolve.

Other misconduct cases have included rigging widely-used interest benchmarks along with other big banks and money-laundering violations involving security trades Russia.

'Worst is over'

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

Cryan, who became co-CEO with Anshu Jain in 2015 and sole CEO in 2016, had to present a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) loss for the full year 2016 at the company's annual news conference on Thursday.

Costs for legal settlements have played a role in weak earnings that have undermined the bank's share price.

Cryan also delivered an extensive apology at the news conference.

mm/bw (AP, dpa)