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Accounting irregularities at Berenberg were designed to flatter profits and its regulatory capital, a forensic investigation into Germany’s oldest private bank has concluded.
Auditors at Deloitte finally signed off on Berenberg’s delayed 2025 accounts on Monday after German financial watchdogs intervened last month to suspend three managing partners and appoint two special representatives to run the bank amid “possible corporate governance breaches”.
Berenberg said on Tuesday that forensic investigators had discovered inconsistencies “primarily intended to influence the bank’s regulatory capital and own funds position” and, in some cases, “generate, smooth or accelerate the recognition of accounting profits”.
The investigation, commissioned after auditors uncovered accounting issues in proprietary equity transactions, concluded that accounting adjustments were required for equity trades, a convertible bond transaction and a corporate restructuring.
It also identified loans to former members of management “where there are indications that the terms and conditions may not have been entirely consistent with market standards”. Investigators further found indications that, in some cases, formal internal control processes “had been deliberately circumvented”.
Berenberg reported net profit of €20.2mn for 2025, down from €81.6mn a year earlier. The bank said all disputed matters had now been reflected in the accounts, while an “opening balance-sheet error” reduced reported profit by €6.7mn.
Hans-Walter Peters, one of the BaFin-appointed special representatives and Berenberg’s former chief executive, said “client business was not affected” and that the bank had generated “a very pleasing profit of around €40mn” in the first half of 2026.
Fellow special representative Michael Horf said Berenberg would “further expand and strengthen” its oversight functions, while Peters said shareholders were considering governance changes “that enable better oversight than was possible under the previous structure” and would discuss the appointment of a new management team with regulators.
