This time last year, Peter Selman was six months into his early retirement after 22 years at Goldman Sachs. But in late 2017, he was convinced not only to return to the financial sector, but to take one of the toughest jobs in banking — turning Deutsche Bank's struggling equities business around.

Deutsche's equities franchise has suffered 10 consecutive quarters of declining revenues and has shrunk by 39% from two years ago. Even as the lack of market volatility has weakened all large banks’ equities businesses, the German bank has taken the hardest hit among its peers — slipping by 19% in 2017, to $2.1bn.