Stefan Wintels
is a different kind of top banker. When colleagues brag about their new Porsche, Wintels talks about his private foundation.
In Frankfurt he often does without the car and rides his Dutch bike emission-free.
Now the banker with a penchant for improving the world has to show what he can do in practice: Since the end of 2021, Wintels has been at the head of the
Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW)
- with a balance sheet total of 547 billion euros, the third largest bank in Germany.
KfW is an institution from the beginnings of the Federal Republic.
It is a product of the Marshall Plan.
With cheap loans, she helped the bombed-out country get back on its feet and laid the foundation for the economic miracle.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Economics Minister Robert Habeck
now want to
make KfW one of their most important tools.
The reorganization of German industry is her job.
KfW is to make billions in investments in climate protection and digitization.
To do this, it needs a budget worth billions and additional sources of funding.
This is a home game for ex-investment banker Wintels.
Since Russia invaded, the project has become even more complex for the new head of KfW.
The aid program for German companies that are now struggling with the consequences of the Russia sanctions alone is said to amount to 100 billion euros.
In a background report, our colleague Katharina Slodczyk describes how Wintels wants to master the new tasks - and whether he can actually become the money donkey for the new German miracle bank.
The business news of the day:
Family Minister Anne Spiegel resigns:
Green Party politician
Anne Spiegel
resigned from her position on Monday.
"Because of the political pressure, I decided today to make the office of Federal Family Minister available," explained the 41-year-old.
Spiegel had come under pressure because she had spent a four-week vacation in France shortly after the flood disaster in the Ahr valley as the responsible environment minister at the time.
She and her family really needed the vacation back then, Spiegel had explained the night before - and pointed out family problems.
Her resignation is the first resignation by a minister in the traffic light coalition.
Economic Wieland resigns:
In Germany people like to speak of the "five economic wise men".
But the " Council of
Experts for the Assessment of Overall Economic Development
," as the body is officially called, will shrink to just three members from May.
The Freiburg economist Lars Feld
left the council
more than a year ago , and the federal government has not yet been able to agree on a successor.
Now the Frankfurt economist
Volker Wieland
is leaving the council of experts at the end of the month - and at the same time criticized the difficult working conditions in the committee.
The pressure on politicians to appoint two new ways of doing business as quickly as possible has increased significantly.
Baerbock calls for heavy weapons:
According to Germany, Ukraine needs them
Foreign Minister
Annalena Baerbock
quickly provided massive military support.
This also included heavy weapons, according to Baerbock.
So far, Germany had hesitated to deliver heavy weapons.
The armaments
group Rheinmetall
has meanwhile offered to deliver Leopard I main battle tanks to Ukraine – provided that the German government agrees.
The personalities of the day:
Jan Marsalek allegedly in Moscow:
Ex-Wirecard board member
Jan Marsalek
has disappeared since the spectacular bankruptcy of the payment service provider Wirecard .
He is considered the mastermind behind the billion-dollar fraud.
According to information from the "Bild" newspaper, Marsalek is said to have gone into hiding in Moscow - and is also under the care of the Russian secret service FSB.
The FSB even offered the BND to interrogate Marsalek last year.
The federal government declined to comment on this.
Elon Musk is backing down
: Tesla boss
Elon Musk
was supposed to join the company's board of directors after becoming a major shareholder in the short message service Twitter.
At least that was the wish of Twitter boss
Parag Agrawal
.
But nothing will come of Musk's operational involvement: after a short period of consideration, the tech billionaire decided against joining the board of directors.
This theoretically gives Musk the opportunity to further increase his stake from the current 9.2 percent of the shares.
My recommendation for the evening:
Life insurers under criticism:
for decades, life insurance was one of the most popular products among Germans when it came to old-age provision.
But low interest rates and high costs consume a large part of the possible return: The
financial regulator Bafin
has now examined the costs of unit-linked life insurance and found them to be too expensive.
Insurance expert
Hermann Weinmann
sees this as a declaration of war on the entire industry.
In an interview with manager magazin, Weinmann talks about excessive costs, kickback payments, overwhelmed customers and actuaries who prove to be "comfort calculators".
Cordially, your Kai Lange