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Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt: The bank wants to turn the tide with a renovation
Photo: Roman Pilipey / dpa
Much to do for Manfred Knof: The Commerzbank boss who has been in office since the beginning of the year has decided to make the bank profitable again with a radical restructuring.
A figure from Wednesday evening shows that it will be a long way.
Accordingly, the bottom line in 2020 was a group loss of just under 2.9 billion euros.
Knof is now relying on tough cuts: 10,000 full-time positions will be cut worldwide, in Germany the institute has halved the number of its branches from 790 to 450. The supervisory board approved the majority of the board's savings plans until 2024 in a special meeting on Wednesday.
"The strategy proposed by the Board of Management will be supported by the Supervisory Board in terms of content and expertise, and its implementation will be constructively supported," announced the bank.
Commerzbank published the key points of the plans last Thursday.
The billion minus already includes 800 million of the total of 1.8 billion euros in expenditures for the corporate restructuring.
The 2020 annual result will also be affected by the fact that the institute is writing off 1.5 billion euros because the businesses taken over from Dresdner Bank and the Polish MBank did not develop as well as hoped at the time.
The bank will publish the details of the balance sheet on February 11th.
Every third job should be dropped
According to the bank's information so far, every third job in Germany is affected by the cuts.
Knof has assured that the management will do everything possible to avoid redundancies.
However, after the plans became known, the Verdi union called for more time to implement the downsizing.
In the supervisory board meeting on Wednesday, the union representatives present were reportedly critical.
In order to advance the negotiations on the downsizing "swiftly and with the necessary fairness and transparency", the Board of Management signed a regulatory agreement on Wednesday with the General Works Council of Commerzbank AG.
"The aim is to ensure the earliest possible clarity and transparency about the issues, timing and perspectives." The aim is to "conclude the necessary framework regulations with the general works council by the general meeting on May 5, 2021."
At the end of September last year, the group still had a good 39,600 full-time positions.
In terms of employees, it was 47,912, of which 33,739 were in Germany.
Shortly after Christmas, management and works councils had already agreed to cut 2,300 full-time positions.
In contrast to many of its competitors, Commerzbank stuck to a dense branch network in Germany for a long time.
Now the bank is giving up another 340 locations.
The bank had not reopened 200 branches that were closed during the pandemic.
At the same time, the board announced that it would digitize and automate business processes “consistently and consistently”.
Together with the online subsidiary Comdirect, which is currently being integrated, the digitalization of the offers is to be advanced.
1.7 billion euros are being invested in IT.
The group's costs are expected to fall by 1.4 billion euros by 2024 compared to 2020.
The long-standing Allianz manager Knof, who previously worked in the private customer business of Deutsche Bank, took over the management of Commerzbank on January 1.
His predecessor Martin Zielke resigned after criticism from investors, and the head of the supervisory board was also replaced by ex-Landesbanker Hans-Jörg Vetter.
Zielke had admitted that the measures adopted in autumn 2019 under the heading “Commerzbank 5.0” were not effective enough to make the bank more profitable when interest rates were low.
Bad mood in the bank
After personnel damage and an unclear course, the mood in the bank's workforce is down, as the latest employee survey "Pulse Check 2020" shows.
Only a fifth of those surveyed are optimistic about the future of the bank.
The survey took place in the period from November 27th to December 11th, i.e. before the change in boss.
The »Handelsblatt« had previously reported on the survey, in which 57 percent of the AG employees took part.
"The survey makes it clear that the employees want clarity quickly as to how things will go next," stated Personnel Manager Sabine Schmittroth.
Zielke's successor, Knof, has made the renovation a top priority.
Knof sees the renovation as an "opportunity to shape the future of Commerzbank itself and to remain independent".
On Wednesday, the new CEO confirmed: “The planned cuts are very painful.
We will take this path with all consistency, but fair and with mutual respect. "
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mic / dpa