Commerzbank

On 26 February 1870, mainly Hanseatic merchants, merchant bankers and private bankers founded the Commerz- and Disconto-Bank in Hamburg. Shipowner C. Woermann was the first chairman of the supervisory board of Commerz- und Disconto-Bank from 1870.[7] In the founding consortium, the following banks were represented:

• Theodor Wille (Theodor Wille, Hamburg)
• Carl Woermann (C. Woermann, Hamburg)
• Alexander Mendelssohn (Bankhaus Mendelssohn & Co., Berlin)
• Ludwig Erdwin Amsinck (of L.E. Amsinck & Co., New York City)
• Conrad Hinrich Donner III. (Conrad Hinrich Donner, Altona)
• Carl Georg Heise (Carl Geo. Heise, Hamburg)
• Georg Hesse (Hesse, Newman & Co., Altona)
• Leopold Lieben (Lieben Königswarter, Hamburg)
• Jacques Emile Louis Alexander Nölting (Emile Nölting & Co., Hamburg)
• Albrecht Percy O'Swald (Wm. O'Swald & Co., Hamburg)
• Ernst Friedrich Sieveking (Vertreter von B.H. Goldschmidt, Frankfurt am Main, und Mendelssohn & Co., Berlin)
• Siegmund Warburg (M. M. Warburg & Co., Hamburg)

In 1873, the subsidiary London and Hanseatic Bank was founded, which was active until the First World War. In Germany, Commerzbank was initially active in Hamburg until 1897 branches were built in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main. After the merger in 1905 with the Berliner Bank, founded in 1871, the focus shifted increasingly to Berlin.[7]

In 1920, Commerzbank AG merged with Mitteldeutsche Privatbank AG in Magdeburg to form Commerz- und Privat-Bank AG, thereby gaining a dense branch network in the provinces of Saxony and Thuringia. In the early 1920s, many smaller banks were taken over (including the Hessian Bank Association) and in 1929 it merged with the Mitteldeutsche Creditbank in Frankfurt am Main. In 1927, Commerzbank increased business in the US by establishing an office in New York and issuing a ten-year, $20-million-dollar bond.[8]

In 1931, during the Great Depression Commerzbank, ran into difficulties. The Reich government under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning decided in February 1932 to merge Commerzbank with Barmer Bankverein, which had a dense branch network in northern and western Germany. Majority of shares of this bank were bought by the government and the Reichsbank.[8]

In 1937, the nationalized shares were then transferred back to private shareholders. In 1940, the name Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, which had already been used in public, was adopted and the logo changed to "C" with side wings. Through Aryanization of the property of Jews displaced or murdered during the Holocaust, Commerzbank participated and benefited mostly through brokerage commissions. From 1940 to 1944, Commerzbank opened several subsidiaries in countries occupied by the German Reich, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia and Latvia. Towards the end of the war, the bank's headquarters moved to Hamburg.[8]

With the division of Europe after World War II, three regional banks were united in 1958 to form Commerzbank AG, which had its headquarters in Düsseldorf. Commerzbank stepped up its economic financing activities and started expanding around the globe. From 1970 onwards, the bank's administrative activities were shifted to Frankfurt am Main, which has been its legal domicile since 1990.[9]

• British Occupation Zone
  • Bankverein Westdeutschland in Düsseldorf
  • Hansa-Bank in Hamburg
  • Merkur-Bank in Hannover
  • Holsten-Bank in Kiel
• French Occupation Zone
  • Mittelrheinische Bank in Mainz
• American Occupation Zone
  • Mitteldeutsche Creditbank in Frankfurt am Main
  • Bankverein für Württemberg-Baden in Stuttgart
  • Bayerische Disconto-Bank in Nürnberg
  • Bremer Handels-Bank in Bremen

Commerzbank suffered reversals in a disastrous foray into investment banking in the first half decade of the 2000s and eventually shut down its Commerzbank Securities investment banking unit run by Mehmet Dalman and Roman Schmidt after Chairman Klaus-Peter Müller labelled it a "problem child" and a review by consulting firm Mercer Oliver Wyman which concluded that Commerzbank Securities lacked a viable business model.[10][11][12][13] What was left of Commerzbank Securities was folded into a division of the commercial bank called Corporates and Markets.[14]

Further mergers, acquisitions and restructures saw the group grow to servicing over 4 million customers in 1998, 6 million customers in 2001 and 15 million post the global financial crisis oriented takeover of Dresdner Bank from Allianz for €5.5 billion in 2008. Commerzbank was hit hard by the financial crisis and received an €18 billion ($22.3 billion) state bailout.[15] In September 2016, Commerzbank planned to cut 9,600 jobs or about a fifth of its workforce in 4 years.[16]

In late 2019, Commerzbank entered into talks with Petrus Advisers to buy its 7.5% stake in Comdirect and take over the entire online bank.[17]

In 2021 the bank announced it will reduce the number of branches in Germany from 790 to 450 and cut jobs by 10,000 (a third of its German workforce)[18] by 2024.[19]