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Commerzbank is in the process of restructuring: the branch network will be reduced and massive job cuts are threatened. Until now, the bank has not had a CEO. But now it has been found.
Commerzbank will welcome its new head of Deutsche Bank: Manfred Knof will replace Martin Zielke on January 1, 2021, as Frankfurt-based MDax Group announced after a board meeting. The staff is still subject to the approval of the supervisory authorities.
“Experienced and highly effective senior manager”
Lawyer Knof has been running Deutsche Bank’s private client business since 1 August 2019. The 55-year-old German boss was previously with the Allianz insurance group. Knof is “an experienced senior manager who is strong in implementation and has proven himself in a wide variety of tasks in the financial services industry,” said Hans-Jörg Vetter, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank.
With Knof’s appointment, the cousin, who only took over as chief controller of the partially nationalized institute in early August, succeeded Zielke surprisingly quickly. After strong criticism from investors, Zielke announced his resignation in early July. The bank then decided to terminate the contract with the CEO, who has been in office since the beginning of May 2016, no later than December 31.
Zielke had admitted that the measures decided in fall 2019 were not decisive enough to make the institute more profitable when interest rates were low. The US fund Cerberus, the institute’s second largest shareholder, had accused Commerzbank’s management of having “blatantly failed over the years.”
The austerity program will be hardened
Commerzbank’s new management faces tough cuts: internal discussions about tightening the austerity course go on for months. The number of the last 40,000 full-time positions could be reduced by as much as a quarter. Of the 1,000 branches, there could be only 200 left where clients can get advice.
Those: boerse.ard.de
