2024-09-24 04:58:27
The Italian Unicredit is buying more shares in Commerzbank. The German government actually wanted to prevent this.
The major Italian bank Unicredit is increasing its stake in Commerzbank even without additional shares from the state. The institute acquired access to a further 11.5 percent of the shares through financial instruments, giving it a calculated stake of around 21 percent, as it announced in Milan. Accordingly, Unicredit said it had applied for official permission to increase its stake to up to 29.9 percent.
The German government had previously announced that it would not sell any more shares in Commerzbank. The reason given was that Commerzbank was a stable and profitable institution.
The Federal Finance Agency announced: “Their strategy is geared towards independence. The federal government will support this by maintaining its participation until further notice.”
The federal finance agency responded to clear criticism. Verdi boss Frank Werneke had declared: “The federal government must not sell any more shares in Commerzbank, but must clearly position itself in favor of maintaining Commerzbank as an independent institution, also and especially in the interests of the German economy.” If a deal with Unicredit is reached, two thirds of the jobs could be lost, said the chairman of the Commerzbank general works council, Uwe Tschäge, to the Bloomberg news agency.
Unicredit took advantage of the federal government’s gradual exit from Commerzbank and surprisingly made a large-scale investment in the DAX-listed company. The Italians hold nine percent of the shares. This led to criticism of the federal government, which was apparently taken by surprise by Unicredit’s entry.
At the end of June, Commerzbank reported that it had around 38,700 full-time positions worldwide, including more than 25,000 in Germany.