HypoVereinsbank

In 1780, Margrave Alexander of Brandenburg-Ansbach, inspired by the example of Prussia's Königliche Hauptbank in Berlin, founded the Hochfürstlich-Brandenburg-Anspach-Bayreuthische Hofbanco (lit. 'Princely Court Bank of Brandenburg-Anspach-Bayreuth') in Ansbach, using a small amount of 15,000 guilders as operating capital. The margrave resorted to this plan for economic reasons, as he wanted to avoid the fees charged by the foreign banks and access the aid funds provided by England for his soldier trade. The American Revolutionary War between England and France in North America had led England to conclude contracts with German counts and request troops from them in exchange for aid funds. In 1792, the Principality of Ansbach was taken over by Prussia and the bank was renamed Königlich Preußische Banco in Franken. In 1806, Ansbach became part of Bavaria and the bank became Königlich Baierische Banco, then Königliche Bank Nürnberg as its seat was relocated to Nuremberg in 1807. It opened operations in Würzburg in 1835, then in Augsburg and Munich in 1875, the latter known as the Royal Subsidiary Bank (German: Königliche Filialbank).

The end of the monarchy in Bavaria in 1918 saw the renaming of the bank to Bavarian State Bank (German: Bayerische Staatsbank). It was eventually acquired by the Vereinsbank in 1971.

The Hypo-Bank, full name Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechsel-Bank (lit. 'Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank'), was founded by law of 1 July 1834 on the initiative of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and started operations on 15 October 1835. In 1836, it was granted the privilege to issue notes in Bavaria, which it kept until the creation of the Reichsbank in 1875. It also had the right to issue Pfandbriefs from 1864, eventually developing into the largest mortgage bank in Germany in the late 19th century.

During the Nazi era, the Hypo-Bank, which had a large Jewish customer base, was initially reluctant to display enthusiasm for the regime but had to implement the official aryanization policy from 1938. Following the end of World War II, it was the first bank in Germany with which citizens of the newly founded state of Israel voluntarily resumed business relationships. Hypo-Bank began to expand throughout Germany and internationally in the 1960s.

The Bayerische Vereinsbank (lit. 'Bavarian Union Bank') was the result of a private initiative by Munich- and Augsburg-based court bankers, members of the nobility as well as common merchants in 1869, for which King Ludwig II granted a concession to set up a public company limited by shares. Two years later, it received permission for land-financing transactions. Bayerische Vereinsbank was then allowed to carry out mortgage banking business operations in addition to other banking business. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bayerische Vereinsbank started to expand throughout Germany and abroad. In 1971 it acquired the Bavarian State Bank, in 1978 Bankhaus Röchling in Saarbrücken, and in 1991, Bankhaus Friedrich Simon (also known as Simonbank) in Düsseldorf. By 1997, it had become the fifth-largest bank in Germany after Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, WestLB, and Commerzbank.[1]

In 1875, the monetary unification reform that created the Reichsbank allowed local bank to keep issuing legal-tender banknotes, but restricted the commercial activities in which such banks could engage, including mortgage lending. As a consequence, Hypo-Bank decided to relinquish its note-issuing role and to transfer it into an entity specifically created for that purpose, the Bayerische Notenbank (lit. 'Bavarian Note[-issuing] Bank'). Two thirds of the new bank's capital was issued to the existing shareholders of Hypo-Bank, with Hypo-Bank and the Bavarian government each taking an additional one-sixth. By 1890, the Bayerische Notenbank had a network of six main branches in Augsburg, Kempten, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Würzburg, and Ludwigshafen in the Bavarian Circle of the Rhine, complemented by 28 smaller agencies.[2]

On 1 January 1935, as a consequence of a reform that terminated all remaining local note-issuance privileges in Germany, the Bayerische Notenbank was absorbed by the Bavarian State Bank.[2]

• 
  Former Heilsbronner Hof on Lorenzer Platz in Nuremberg, seat of the Royal Bank from 1807 (pictured in 1837)
• 
  Building erected for the Royal Bank on the same location in the later 19th century
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  Bavarian State Bank head office on the same location, designed after World War II by Sep Ruf and repurposed in the 2010s for the Bavarian Finance Ministry
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  Royal Bank branch in Würzburg, Hofstrasse 13
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  Former building of the Royal Subsidiary Bank on Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße in Munich, in 1898
• 
  The same building in 2018, following expansion
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  Bavarian Royal Bank subsidiary building in Augsburg, inaugurated 1899[3]
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  Palais Preysing in Munich, head office of Hypo-Bank from 1835 to 1898[4]
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  Hypo-Bank head office inaugurated 1898 on Kardinal-Faulhaber-Straße in Munich; redeveloped from 1994 into the Fünf Höfe commercial complex
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  Munich head office of Vereinsbank, designed by Wilhelm Martens and erected in two phases 1885-1886 and 1891-1893[1]
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  The same building in 2018, still used by HypoVereinsbank

HVB logo following the 1998 merger (used until March 2008)

In 1998, Hypo-Bank and Bayerische Vereinsbank merged to form Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank Aktiengesellschaft, also known as HypoVereinsbank or HVB. The merger was conceived as a defensive move favored by the Bavarian authorities, against the prospect of a hostile takeover of Bayerische Vereinsbank by Deutsche Bank which had been rumored since 1996.[1]

The new heavyweight expanded its network into Central and Eastern Europe. During the period from 2000 to 2002, HVB completed the integration of Vienna-based Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA) and created HVB Group. Within that Group, BA-CA was responsible for the CEE countries, and bought, amongst others, the Bulgarian bank Biochim, the Serbian Eksimbanka and the Romanian Banca Comerciala Ion Țiriac.

However, the 1998 merger soon turned into a financial debacle.[1] Hypo-Bank had entered it with a large mortgage legacy and had substantial encumbrances stemming, in particular, from the allocation of mortgage loans to the new federal states. HVB CEO Albrecht Schmidt later estimated the real-estate encumbrances to have cropped up "unexpectedly" to around DM 3.5 billion. This was followed by a bitter dispute between HVB and the former CEO of Hypo-Bank, Eberhard Martini, during the course of which Martini lost his position on HVB's Supervisory Board. The public prosecutor of Munich I also initiated preliminary proceedings against Martini and other management board members of the former Hypo-Bank, which were ended in 2001 against the payment of fines. The fine imposed on Martini in this procedure amounted to DM 700,000.

In March 2003, HVB's property financing subsidiary Hypo Real Estate was spun off and floated on the stock market. A minority share in Bank Austria Creditanstalt was also publicly listed.

In 2005, an increasingly distressed HVB was taken over by Unicredit. Also in 2005, HVB absorbed Vereins- und Westbank, which had been formed by the 1974 merger of Vereinsbank Hamburg (unrelated to Bayerische Vereinsbank) and Westbank. Vereinsbank Hamburg had been founded in 1856 on the initiative of renowned merchants in Hamburg. Westbank was created in 1943 from a forced merger of several smaller banks in northern Germany. It was initially called "Schleswig-Holsteinische und Westbank", and was renamed "Westbank" in 1968.

In 2006, HVB took over the corporate clients portfolio of Westfalenbank AG, which had been founded in 1921 by leading companies in the Rhineland-Westphalian industrial district on Bochum. There was already a connection between the two institutions since Hypo-Bank had acquired a part of Westfalenbank in 1971.

Also in 2006, HVB sold its overwhelming majority holding in BA-CA to UniCredit for €13 billion, without an auction process. This subsequently led to a number of lawsuits by HVB shareholders. The investment company Activest was sold to a UniCredit fund subsidiary called Pioneer Investments.

In January 2007, UniCredit announced its intention to carry out a squeeze-out of HVB. The price in this respect was established at €38.26 per share. A decision on the squeeze-out was taken at the Shareholders Meeting on 26 June 2007. Following the Shareholders Meeting, over 100 actions to set aside a shareholders' resolution by free HVB shareholders took place; this represents a record for Germany. At the Shareholders Meeting, the Bonn-based lawyer Thomas Heidel was selected as special representative pursuant to § 147 German Stock Corporation Act, who, amongst other things, was to look into possible claims for damages in conjunction with the sale of the Bank Austria shareholding. UniCredit, for its part, lodged an action to set aside a shareholders' resolution in turn.[5] During the subsequent period, the special representative lodged complaints that his work was being obstructed.[6] On 15 September 2008, the squeeze-out adopted by the Shareholders Meeting in June 2007 was entered into the commercial register at the Register of Companies in Munich. As such, all remaining HVB shares were transferred to UniCredit by force of law, and the listing on the stock exchanges was discontinued.[7]

In April 2008, HVB aligned its brand with that of UniCredit Group. The name HypoVereinsbank was retained; however, the previous blue logo was replaced by black lettering preceded by the red UniCredit logo.[8] In a second step, the German parent entity Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank Aktiengesellschaft was renamed UniCredit Bank AG on 15 December 2008 (amongst other reasons, due to a perceived risk of confusion with the troubled Hypo Real Estate), without that affecting the HVB branding strategy.[9]

In August 2014, the company announced the sale of the DAB direct banking subsidiary.[10] BNP Paribas paid €354 million for the 81.4% share in DAB held by HVB.

HypoVereinsbank sold its interest in PlanetHome AG in June 2015. The transfer of the equities was completed on 16 June 2015. Financial investors AP Capital Investments and Deutsche Invest Equity Partners purchased PlanetHome AG and its subsidiaries. Cooperation with PlanetHome shall remain unaffected by the sale of the equities. Since 2016, former subsidiary UniCredit Bank Serbia (formerly HVB Banka Srbija), UniCredit Bank Slovenia (formerly Bank Austria Creditanstalt d.d. Ljubljana), UniCredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia (formerly HVB Bank Czech Republic) were directly under UniCredit S.p.A., the parent company of HypoVereinsbank.

Important subsidiaries of UniCredit Bank AG are:

• Bankhaus Neelmeyer AG, Bremen (private sector bank)
• Unicredit Direct Services GmbH, Munich (Call centre)
• HVB Immobilien AG, Munich (Real estate management)
• Unicredit Leasing GmbH, Hamburg (Leasing company)
• HVB Profil Gesellschaft für Personalmanagement mbH, Munich (Temping agency)
• Wealth Management Capital Holding GmbH

HypoVereinsbank is a member of the Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy at the Federation of German Industries, and is both initiator and promoter of numerous cultural projects and institutions. Its cultural commitment extends from the work of the Hypo Cultural Foundation, with the Kunsthalle in Munich, right through to the sponsorship of music festivals and international competitions (e.g. Bayreuther Festspiele, Rheingau Musik Festival, Bachfest Leipzig, Richard-Strauss-Festival and the singing competition Competizione dell'Opera). For more than 30 years, the bank has been supporting young artists with its own cultural promotion programme, Jugend kulturell. This includes a series of events throughout Germany, exhibitions in the various genres of the Fine Arts and an annual competition for the Jugend kulturell Award.

Furthermore, HVB hosts the UniCredit Festival Night in Munich's city centre. The annual kick-off event of the Munich Opera Festival presents performances from the world of opera, concert, dance, songs and literature. The UniCredit Festival Night is organised in cooperation with the Bavarian State Opera. The HypoVereinsbank Art Collection also plays an important role in the bank's promotion of culture. At present, it comprises over 20,000 artworks, ranging from antiquity right down to the present day, which are distributed among 600 branch offices around the world.[11] The Collection focuses on older masterpieces (e.g. Leandro Bassano and François Boucher); classical, modern and contemporary art (e.g. Kurt Schwitters, Georg Baselitz and Gerhard Richter), light art (e.g. Dan Flavin) and photography (e.g. Henri Cartier-Bresson).[11]

In the context of the judicial scandal involving Gustl Mollath, UniCredit is named as the legal successor of HypoVereinsbank, which failed to forward an internal audit report[12] on customers' capital transfer to Switzerland to the public prosecutor.[13]

From the 1990s, HypoVereinsbank put [14] junk properties throughout Germany on the market and helped the buyers with the financing. The true value of the properties was concealed, while the estate agents were trained and remunerated accordingly.[15][16] In one case, the aggrieved parties took their case to the Federal Court of Justice of Germany, which ruled that the bank was liable for the agent's transaction.[17][18]

• 1780–1792: Wilhelm Friedrich von Benkendorff
• 1792–1806: Karl August von Hardenberg
• 1806–1819: Johann Georg von Kracker
• 1819–1839: Johann Georg Eberhard Faber
• 1839–1845: Johann Philipp Siess
• 1845–1851: Christian Friedrich Heinrich Lentz
• 1851–1861: Johann Gottfried Christian von Mayer
• 1861–1862: Friedrich Carl Burkart
• 1862–1878: Christian von Pfeufer
• 1878–1898: Ferdinand von Landgraf
• 1898–1909: Andreas von Seisser
• 1909–1915: Wilhelm von Burkhard
• 1915–1919: Franz von Coluzzi
• 1919–1928: Hugo Arnold
• 1928–1934: Wilhelm von Wolf
• 1934–1942: Paul Hammer
• 1942–1945: Albert Gorter
• 1945–1954: Karl Max von Hellingrath
• 1954–1964: Alfred Jamin
• 1964–1971: Rudolf Eberhard

• 1988-1998: Eberhard Martini

• 1869–1873: Andreas Siegel
• 1873–1897: Friedrich Volz
• 1898–1907: Joseph Pütz
• 1908–1928: Adolf Pöhlmann
• 1929–1937: Hans Christian Dietrich
• 1938–1956: Karl Butzengeiger
• 1956–1959: Wilhelm Biber
• 1959–1968: Hans Christoph Freiherr Tucher von Simmelsdorf
• 1968–1975: Werner Premauer
• 1975–1990: Maximilian Hackl
• 1990–1998: Albrecht Schmidt

• 1998-2002: Albrecht Schmidt
• 2003-2005: Dieter Rampl
• 2006-2008: Wolfgang Sprißler
• 2009-2017: Theodor Weimer
• 2018-2023: Michael Diederich
• Since 2023: Marion Höllinger