After the greenwashing raid on DWS, the designated head of Deutsche Bank's investment company wants to look ahead.

The priority now is "to restore trust in the DWS platform," said Stefan Hoops on Thursday at the Annual General Meeting, at the end of which he will take over the top position at Germany's largest asset manager.

The 42-year-old will succeed Asoka Wöhrmann, who resigned after allegations that DWS had marketed investment products as "greener" or more sustainable than they actually were.

During his last appearance as DWS boss, he rejected the allegations as unfounded, untenable and frustrating and referred to the record figures achieved: "The past financial year 2021 was the most successful year for DWS ever." The investor Union Investment wants the DWS management however, refuse to give discharge at the general meeting, as the shareholder announced in an email.

An insider explained that the reason for the decision was how to deal with the allegations of greenwashing.

Union Investment holds 1.16 percent of DWS, which is almost 80 percent owned by Deutsche Bank.

In this respect, the step is symbolic.

The public prosecutor's office in Frankfurt has been investigating the Deutsche Bank fund subsidiary since January on suspicion of capital investment fraud.

At the end of May, the Federal Criminal Police Office, together with the public prosecutor and Bafin, searched the headquarters of the DWS Group and Deutsche Bank.

For the public prosecutors, there were "sufficient factual indications that, contrary to the information in the sales prospectuses of DWS funds, ESG factors were actually only taken into account in a minority of the investments." ESG investments (ESG: Environment, Social, Governance) are one of the Mega trends in the financial sector, which DWS in particular has also taken up the cause of.

DWS rejects the allegations.

After an external investigation, the head of the supervisory board, Karl von Rohr, sees "no reason for a further examination by the supervisory board," as he said at the general meeting.

He announced clear consequences should the authorities' investigations reveal any wrongdoing.

The greenwashing allegations first surfaced last year.

The former head of the sustainability division, Desiree Fixler, had accused the company of being too lax with the criteria for ESG investments.

The manager, who left DWS after just a few months on the job, first revealed herself to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI as a “whistleblower” in 2021.