Hilmar Kopper is dead. The former head of Deutsche Bank died on Thursday after a brief serious illness.
In the public he was best known for a flippant comparison.
Frankfurt / Main - The former Deutsche Bank * boss Hilmar Kopper is dead. Kopper died on Thursday of this week after a short serious illness with his family, Germany's largest financial institution announced on Friday in Frankfurt.
Kopper was 86 years old.
"With Hilmar Kopper, Deutsche Bank has lost one of its most formative personalities," said Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Paul Achleitner, in tribute to the banker.
Acting CEO Christian Sewing said: “Hilmar Kopper has been closely connected to our bank throughout his professional life and beyond.
He was a role model for our employees. "
Hilmar Kopper: Pulling the cord in the German economy
During his active time, Kopper, the son of a farmer from the West Prussian Oslanin, pulled the strings at important switching points of the German economy for decades: He was head of Deutsche Bank (1989-1997) and chief supervisor of the car manufacturer Daimler (1990-2007).
Kopper took over the management of Deutsche Bank after the RAF assassination attempt on Alfred Herrhausen on November 30, 1989 and managed the group until May 1997. Kopper made the bank more international and advanced the expansion of investment banking through various takeovers.
In the financial crisis of 2007/2008, the former profit machine investment banking turned out to be an expensive risk.
Bonus excesses and billions in fines brought an entire business area into disrepute.
In the meantime, the Deutsche Bank has evaporated the division.
Investment banking includes trading in securities and foreign exchange as well as taking care of company takeovers, mergers and IPOs.
Hilmar Kopp: Self-deprecating advertising campaign
Kopper became known beyond the bank through a flippant remark: The banker described open tradesman's bills over 50 million D-Marks as "peanuts" as a result of the crash of Jürgen Schneider's real estate empire.
Critics rated this as arrogance, "Peanuts" became the "bad word of the year" in 1994.
Kopper took it with humor, as he had described to the German Press Agency on the occasion of his 85th birthday on March 13, 2020: For the
FAZ
advertising campaign “There's always a clever head behind it”, the manager had himself photographed on a mountain of peanuts.
"Of course, I sat on the peanut truck myself," emphasized Kopper looking back.
“We laughed an
awful
lot during the recordings in Georgia.”
(Dpa) * Merkur.de is part of IPPEN.MEDIA.
