15 February 2024, Hesse, Frankfurt/M.: The lettering “Commerzbank” may be seen on the Commerzbank Tower within the middle of the banking metropolis. Boosted by the turnaround in rates of interest, Commerzbank is aiming for one more revenue enhance after a file 12 months. Picture: Helmut Fricke/dpa (Picture by Helmut Fricke/image alliance by way of Getty Pictures)
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Two-thirds of the roles at Commerzbank may disappear if UniCredit efficiently carries out a hostile takeover of the German lender, a Commerzbank supervisory board member warned on Tuesday.
Stefan Wittmann, who can also be a senior official at German commerce union Verdi, advised CNBC’s Annette Weisbach that “we definitely hope we are able to keep away from” a hostile takeover by the Italian financial institution. Witmann stated Commerzbank’s board had referred to as on the German authorities to hold out an inner evaluation of the doable takeover, which he hopes will give the financial institution a six-month interval to take inventory of the state of affairs.
“But when it [a hostile takeover] is unavoidable, we predict that two-thirds of jobs will disappear, that there shall be one other important lower within the branches,” he stated, in accordance with a translation.
“We are going to see particularly that UniCredit doesn’t need all Commerzbank clients in any respect, however that it focuses on the supposedly greatest clients, specifically the rich clients,” he added.
Berlin, which was the biggest shareholder of Commerzbank after it injected 18.2 billion euros ($20.2 billion) to rescue the lender throughout the 2008 monetary disaster, is more likely to play a key function in any potential merger between the banks.
“We are literally involved with our financial and industrial accountability. So far as the workforce is worried, which commerce unions are after all significantly centered on, they’d at all times lose out within the merger, whatever the time limit,” Wittmann stated. The financial institution has but to reply to a request for touch upon Wittmann’s statements.
Italy’s UniCredit introduced Monday it had elevated its stake within the German lender to round 21% and submitted a request to spice up that holding to as much as 29.9%, signaling a takeover bid could be within the playing cards.
UniCredit believes substantial worth may be unlocked inside Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest lender, but it surely stated that additional motion is required for that worth to be “crystalized.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz criticized UniCredit’s transfer on Monday, saying, “unfriendly assaults, hostile takeovers usually are not an excellent factor for banks and that’s the reason the German authorities has clearly positioned itself on this course,” Reuters reported.
Wittmann stated the temper is at present “very tense” inside the firm, including that the financial institution was shocked by UniCredit’s announcement on Monday, which he described as a “180 degree-turn inside 48 hours.”
“[UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel] final spoke on Friday that he needed a pleasant takeover in settlement with all stakeholders and politicians. And yesterday we have been shocked by his hostile takeover try. That does not add up,” Wittmann stated.
The supervisory board member defined that the 2 important causes to treat a possible merger in a vital mild are the dearth of a banking union in Europe, and the truth that UniCredit has “absorbed itself with Italian authorities bonds lately.”
He questioned what would possibly occur ought to geopolitical tensions or “upheavals” affect UniCredit’s availability of capital to finance Commerzbank’s trade.
Economist and former European Central Financial institution Governor Mario Draghi flagged in a current report that banks in Europe face regulatory hurdles which “constrain their capability to lend,” naming additionally the “incomplete” Banking Union in Europe as an element that impacts competitiveness for the area’s banks.
“Now we have at all times spoken out, together with as worker representatives on the Supervisory Board, that there can and ought to be mergers at [a] European stage, however solely when the banking union is in place. And that’s simply our second level of criticism, that we are saying: create the foundations of the sport and the guardrails first, after which do it sensibly when it’s clear which enjoying discipline we’re on,” Wittmann stated.
