The former President of the Bundesbank is to succeed Helmut Gottschalk as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank in May 2023.
When Deutsche Bank introduced Alexander Wynaendts as the new head of the supervisory board in 2021, many asked themselves: Alexander who? When Commerzbank announced that Jens Weidmann was to become its new chief controller, most observers thought: Wow!
With the appointment of the ex-Bundesbank President, Germany’s second largest private bank has managed a coup. Weidmann is not only held in high esteem in the financial sector. As the former head of the Economic and Financial Policy Department in the Chancellery, he also has a political flair.
This is particularly important for Commerzbank, after all its future depends largely on what the federal government intends to do with its 15 percent stake in the bank. Will it sell it to another European institute as part of a merger? Or does it ensure that Commerzbank remains independent as a major financier of German SMEs?
In order to create the conditions for a successful future, Commerzbank must first push ahead with its restructuring and then develop a strategy for how it wants to assert itself as a medium-sized bank in global competition. At 54, Weidmann has the opportunity to help shape this process over the long term.
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Can Weidmann keep CEO Knof in check?
One drawback, however, is that Weidmann has no experience as a banker. Some investors fear that he will not be able to control CEO Manfred Knof like his predecessor Helmut Gottschalk. To make matters worse, Knof himself has not spent most of his career in banking, but with the insurance group Allianz.
A look at the recent past shows that intensive monitoring of the Board of Managing Directors at Commerzbank is urgently required. For years, the management steered in the wrong direction by sticking to a branch network that was too large, without the inspectors intervening. In addition, the bank granted the bankrupt company Wirecard a large loan – and later had to write it off.
Even today, there are still numerous construction sites at Commerzbank: the ongoing crisis at the Polish subsidiary M-Bank and problems with sending tax certificates are just two of many examples.
So Weidmann is taking on a demanding job at Commerzbank, in which he has to familiarize himself even more deeply with the banking business. His predecessor at the Bundesbank showed that this can succeed: Axel Weber was hired as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the major Swiss bank UBS and cut investment banking there. Today, the institute is in a much better position than most of its competitors in Europe.
More: Jens Weidmann is to become the new Commerzbank supervisory board chairman