The most important personnel issues at Commerzbank have been clarified faster than expected.
The new CEO comes from the neighboring competition.
Now it has to be about content quickly.
Frankfurt / Main - Deutsche Bank manager Manfred Knof is supposed to lead Commerzbank back on the road to success.
The unanimous decision of the supervisory board on Saturday is a clear signal: Instead of internally regulating the successor to the CEO Martin Zielke, who will be leaving at the end of the year, an external candidate should bring a breath of fresh air to the Frankfurt-based MDax group.
Knof can start his new role on January 1, 2021 with a leap of faith.
The financial investor Cerberus, whose harsh criticism of the previous leadership of the bank had provoked the new appointment, relies on Knof's experience in matters of restructuring.
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Deutsche Bank manager Manfred Knof becomes CEO of Commerzbank.
© Tobias Hase / dpa
Commerzbank: "There is still room for improvement in terms of efficiency and profitability"
The current head of Deutsche Bank's private customer business is "an experienced and
highly effective
top manager who has proven himself in a wide range of tasks in the financial services industry," said
Commerzbank
supervisory board chairman
Hans-Jörg Vetter
in a statement on Saturday evening.
Vetter, who has only been in office for almost two months, recently made it clear on the bank's intranet what he expects from the future CEO: “
Commerzbank has a lot of good things, but there is still room for improvement in terms of efficiency and profitability
.
There are still many traditional structures that are no longer appropriate to today's requirements and the size of the bank. "
Knof
(55) is a specialist in
difficult missions
.
From 1995 onwards, the lawyer held a wide variety of management positions in the Allianz Group, most recently until 2017 as head of Germany, Switzerland and Central and Eastern Europe.
Knof drove the digitalization of the insurance company and stepped on the cost brake - also by means of job cuts.
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The Commerzbank logo in front of the company headquarters.
© picture alliance / dpa / Frank Rumpenhorst
New Commerzbank boss: Knof gained experience at Dresdner Bank
But
Knof also gained experience
at Dresdner Bank, which was
swallowed up by Commerzbank
in the
2008 financial crisis
: from 2003 to 2005 he worked in various functions at the then Allianz subsidiary - most recently as head of the private customer business Germany South with responsibility for around 1000 branches.
When
Deutsche Bank made
him
head of its private customer business in August 2019 - one level below the management board - Germany’s largest financial institution said that Knof stood for “customer proximity, digital awakening and strict cost discipline”.
Deutsche Bank has been undergoing radical restructuring since summer 2019.
The DAX group has just announced that it will reduce the number of branches in Germany from a good 500 to 400 locations next year.
Even more
drastic
cuts are
expected in
Commerzbank's
much denser branch network
.
Out of 1000 branches there could be just 200 left where customers can get advice.
Even before the Corona crisis, there were discussions at Commerzbank about tightening the austerity program announced in autumn 2019.
The pandemic has given digitization a further boost.
At Commerzbank, the number of the last 40,000 full-time positions could be cut by up to a quarter.
Commerzbank: "The new strategy is a radical U-turn and goes far beyond anything that has come before"
"The new strategy is a radical
U-turn
and goes far beyond anything that has happened before," said Michael Mandel, the head of private customers who will be leaving on September 30, recently.
Because of the consequences of the pandemic and the costs of restructuring the group, the bank expects the figures to be in the red for the current year.
Analysts assume that Commerzbank will only return to profitability in 2022.
Coincidence or not:
Knof's appointment
falls on the anniversary of the announcement of the
“Commerzbank 5.0”
strategy
.
The impatience of investors has increased after the steps introduced by Zielke a year ago were not really convincing: a little less staff, a little fewer branches, integration of the online subsidiary Comdirect.
The Commerzbank board of management called off the sale of the majority stake in the Polish mBank because the asking price could not be implemented in times of the Corona.
This spring, the “hellhound” Cerberus showed its teeth: The
Commerzbank
management had
“blatantly failed for years”
, judged the major shareholder and criticized “the immature and poorly implemented efforts of the management to prevent the decline of Commerzbank”.
Cerberus, who also has a stake in Deutsche Bank, is Commerzbank's second largest shareholder with a good five percent - after the German state, which today holds 15.6 percent as a result of the billions in tax rescued from the financial crisis.
Commerzbank: The new chief controller Vetter arranged the successor to Zielke surprisingly quickly
The harsh criticism had an effect: Zielke admitted that the
measures decided in autumn 2019 were not decisive enough
to make the institute more profitable in the low interest rates - and announced his resignation as CEO by the end of the year at the latest.
The then chairman of the supervisory board, Stefan Schmittmann, threw it out.
With the appointment of Knof, the new
chief inspector Vetter arranged
for Zielke's successor surprisingly quickly.
And: Instead of an internal solution with CFO Bettina Orlopp or CFO Roland Boekhout, Vetter has even won an external candidate for the difficult task - provided that the supervisors of the European Central Bank (ECB) still agree.
The major shareholder Bund had recently expressed confidence in the future of the bank.
"I think that we can now see that many are trying
to give
Commerzbank
a good future and to make courageous decisions," said Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD) at a banking conference in early September.
"I think that should now be accompanied first."
- dpa
List of rubric lists: © picture alliance / dpa / Frank Rumpenhorst
