FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - In view of the impending takeover by the major Italian bank Unicredit, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank, Jens Weidmann, has backed the management. The future Commerzbank CEO Bettina Orlopp will take the lead "in this decisive phase for the future of our bank", emphasized Weidmann in a letter to the employees, which was published on the bank's intranet. She will also remain Chief Financial Officer until a successor has been found. In future, Orlopp will be supported by Michael Kotzbauer as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board.
"We now have a powerful Board of Managing Directors team that has many years of Commerzbank experience and is firmly committed to Commerzbank," said Weidmann. "I emphasize this because Commerzbank is not just any bank." With almost eleven million private and corporate customers, the bank is "of central importance for the German economy".
Orlopp is "exactly the right person to lead Commerzbank through these challenging times into a successful future", said Weidmann. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board thanked outgoing CEO Manfred Knof. "Under his leadership, Commerzbank got back on the road to success in record time." The bank can enter the coming "challenging weeks" with a confident attitude.
In the midst of the takeover battle, Commerzbank had made new appointments to its top management. The future CEO Orlopp can take over the top job as early as next week. The current CEO Manfred Knof will step down at the end of the month.
The Italian Unicredit had surprisingly acquired a large stake in Commerzbank. The Italians had recently secured the option to increase their stake from 9 to 21 percent via financial instruments. This would make Unicredit by far the largest shareholder - ahead of the German government, which holds around twelve percent. At the same time, Unicredit applied for permission from the authorities to increase its stake to up to 29.9 percent. This makes an official takeover bid for Commerzbank more likely./csc/DP/nas
