NC cancels an incentive agreement with Deutsche Bank’s Cary tech hub after layoffs
North Carolina canceled an incentive agreement with Deutsche Bank on Tuesday, after the German bank told the state that it would be unable to meet hiring requirements because of job cuts at its campus in Cary.
Last month, in a letter to the state’s Commerce Department, the global banking giant requested the termination of the Job Development Investment Grant it received in 2015.
That agreement was officially ended after a vote by the state’s Economic Incentive Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Deutsche has received multiple incentive packages from the state in recent years, as it gradually built up a global technology center in Cary. The Wake County town has been the home of Deutsche Bank’s global technology center since 2009, The News & Observer previously reported.
In 2015, the bank had promised to add 250 new jobs in Cary in return for $3.4 million in state incentives. The jobs were based with its tech subsidiary DB Global Technology and were expected to have average average salary of $85,600.
Deutsche was also awarded as much as $5.6 million in incentives in 2013, when it announced plans to more than double in size by adding 431 jobs by the end of 2016, The N&O previously reported. In 2009, when it originally chose to establish a presence in Cary, the company received a grant worth up to $9.4 million.
The tech center in Cary focuses on developing software the bank uses around the world for things like trading, managing orders and processing transactions. While Charlotte has traditionally been the center of finance in North Carolina, several banks, such as Deutsche, Credit Suisse and Fidelity, have selected the Triangle as homes for some of their information and technology roles.
But Deutsche, which once had nearly 100,000 employees worldwide, has seen its stature decline in the years since the last global recession. Last year, the company laid off more than 10,000 employees as part of an effort to trim its workforce to 74,000 employees by 2022.
In its letter to the Commerce Department, which was obtained by The N&O, the company cited challenges it faced in European financial markets as a reason for its failure to keep its agreement with the state.
“As a result of challenges faced in the European financial market and the fiscal pressure faced by the Bank during 2017 and 2018, DB Global Technology Inc. has curbed prior plans for expansion of our technology footprint in Cary, North Carolina,” David Miller, of DB Global Technology, wrote in the letter to Commerce. “This resulted in an overall reduction of headcount at the project facility.”
In Cary, Deutsche had around 800 employees, the N&O reported last year. But in an update on its headcount to the Commerce Department, the bank said its Cary facility now employs 577 people.
The bank told Commerce it plans to maintain its IT operations in Cary to stay in compliance with its incentive agreements from 2013 and 2009.
A spokesperson for the bank said that despite the termination, it is still committed to its Cary campus.
“While DB Global Technology no longer qualifies for this program, we continue to greatly value our partnership with the State of North Carolina and we are growing the team at our strategic technology site in Cary.”
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 1:33 PM.
