Commerzbank Is Getting Its New Boss From Deutsche Bank
Commerzbank is getting its new boss from Deutsche Bank: Manfred Knof will take over from Martin Zielke on January 1, 2021, as the Frankfurt-based MDax Group announced after a meeting of the supervisory board. The personnel are still subject to the approval of the supervisory authorities.
The lawyer Knof has headed the private customer business of Deutsche Bank since August 1, 2019. Previously, the 55-year-old head of Germany was at the insurance group Allianz. Knof is "an experienced top manager who is strong in implementation and has proven himself in a wide variety of tasks in the financial services industry," said Commerzbank supervisory board chairman Hans-Jörg Vetter.
With the appointment of Knof, the cousin, who only took over as chief controller of the partially nationalized institute at the beginning of August, arranged for Zielke's successor surprisingly quickly. After sharp criticism from investors, Zielke announced his resignation at the beginning of July. The bank then decided to terminate the contract with the CEO, who has been in office since the beginning of May 2016, by December 31 at the latest. Zielke had admitted that the measures decided in autumn 2019 were not decisive enough to make the institute more profitable when interest rates were low. The US fund Cerberus as the institute's second largest shareholder had accused the Commerzbank management of having "blatantly failed over the years".
The new Commerzbank management is facing tough cuts: internal discussions about tightening the austerity course have been going on for months. The number of the last 40,000 full-time positions could be cut by up to a quarter. Out of 1000 branches there could be just 200 left where customers can get advice.