Deutsche Bank faces calls to spin off its investment banking activities within two years and pull back from the US, under proposals put forward by activist shareholders at its forthcoming annual meeting.

The demands come from Ekkehard Wenger, a university professor and a prominent champion of change at many of Germany’s biggest companies for two decades, and Leonhard Knoll, a fellow academic, who liken the investment banking industry to football where “everything is distributed to the players and nothing is left for the club”.