Many open questions: leadership chaos instead of clear perspective at Commerzbank

Commerzbank paralyzes himself. Almost ten hours sat on the boards of the Institute on Wednesday to find a solution to the leadership crisis.

The output is sobering: A Four-sentence notice, the Bank writes, what was basically, on Friday already clear. Group chief Executive Martin Zielke goes in advance no later than the end of December – but don’t first, because there is, as yet, a vague idea of who should lead the part-nationalised Frankfurt’s MDax-listed company in the future.

Also, the second Top management change – replacement for Chairman of the Supervisory Board Stefan Schmittmann – remains unclear. No internal candidate is, although the body has schmittmann 19 other members.

“It is to shoot a bit at the penalty kick: No one dares to shoot, but it also wants to be replaced”, etches an observer. Now, to be externally sought. The next attempt to regulate the succession to: The Supervisory Board meeting on November 3. August, at the Schmitt man, his office wants to lay down.

As a “child process”, the Schmitt husband of the workforce promised in the Intranet, not all of it. And time is of the essence. The Management needs to urgently answer the question of how the duration of low interest rates sustainably is to earn money and what to be in comparison to the competition, as before, relatively large branch network.

Although the Executive Board was unimpressed by the leadership chaos of the Supervisory boards on Wednesday in broad terms how he envisions the course for the next few years. The recipes are in the core of little surprise: More job cuts and branch closures.

However, as a Chairman of the Board, on demand to implement convincing a stricter austerity course? And the Bank, in all Seriousness Zielkes successor with a fait accompli? “Which is the qualified Manager wants to implement a drastic times, left behind by a failed predecessor to him?” ask the “Börsen-Zeitung”.

Resistance is also on the Supervisory Board: “It would be a slap in the face for a new chief Executive to adopt a strategy.” The strategy on the 5. August will be published with the half-year figures, is more than uncertain.

Much time, of course, a new CEO would not be. The impatience of the investors has increased after the autumn of Zielke presented steps convinced really: a Little less Personal, a little less branches, integration of the Online subsidiary Comdirect. The sale of the majority stake in the Polish mBank, Commerzbank Executive Board blew because the asking price in the market currently do not enforce.

In the spring of 2019, it looked like Commerzbank could prosper together with the German Bank. However, the fusion dream burst. And while Deutsche Bank head Christian Sewing missed his house, then a radical, and since then, the restructuring of the largest German money house self-consciously advancing, it remained at Commerzbank, in the case of smaller adjustments. From “Commerzbank 4.0” was simply “Commerzbank 5.0” – like a big swing in Strategy that didn’t sound during the presentation of the plans in the autumn of 2019.

The credit rating Agency Fitch expects that a renewal of the group would lead management to the Commerzbank Board of managing Directors “is taking more substantial measures to resolve the inability of the Bank to achieve their financial goals”. However, the tag could paralyze over the years: of job losses and branch closures could help “to improve the chronically weak profits of the Bank in the medium term,” says Fitch. However, such steps would be “no quick solution, as additional restructuring costs, the pressure on Profitability in the short term, would increase”.

Nevertheless: “The Bank is not sick!”, Stefan Wittmann, a representative of the Verdi trade Union, the Commerzbank Supervisory Board stressed, in the Germany radio. The Bank’s standing “on solid ground”, have decent equity, to meet all the requirements of the overseer, and had “placed neatly in the business model”.

Commerzbank play “a Central role for the SME and export financing of the German economy” – so the Federal government describes it as the largest single shareholder of the Institute. According to information Commerzbank handles around 30 percent of German foreign trade and is the market leader in the German corporate customer business. 43 per cent of the exporting companies to work together in a Forsa poll in international business with Commerzbank.

Mandatory “to designate a clear course”, warns a Supervisory Board of Wittmann. The main problem from the point of view of the employee representative: Since the cancelled merger with Deutsche Bank, the staff of the yellow Bank last almost 40 000 full-time employees in the group know – “actually, not exactly ( … ) where to go”. The Supervisory Board meeting of Wednesday has changed nothing.