Deutsche Bank cools on Postbank bid
Germany’s Deutsche Bank has stepped back from making a takeover offer for state-owned Postbank, despite coming under heavy political pressure to make a stronger commitment to its home market.
Deutsche Bank executives – who met yesterday to discuss making a bid for the retail banking arm of Deutsche Post – signalled that the country’s biggest bank would be sticking to its role as a global co-ordinator for the flotation of Postbank.
A Deutsche Bank official said: “We never comment on client affairs,” a remark that bankers in Frankfurt interpreted as suggesting that Deutsche had opted to retain its advisory role with Deutsche Post, the state-controlled German mail service.
Investment bankers speculated that Deutsche Bank might have been reluctant to offer the sort of price Deutsche Post might have been seeking.
The bank’s executives insisted this week that “the price had to be right”. A figure of more than Euros 6bn had been suggested in the German press.
The bank’s caution comes despite clear indications from the German government that it is keen to see Deutsche Bank acquiring Postbank as a step towards creating a dominant player in the domestic market.
Last week Chancellor Gerhard Schroder urged German banks to merge to create a national champion that could compete with the big US and European banks in a global banking market.
But his call also stoked a power struggle within Deutsche Bank between its now dominant investment bankers and a group of traditionalists on the supervisory board who believe the bank should focus on its home market.
Yesterday the friction flared up again when traditionalists – led by Ulrich Cartellieri, a former senior executive – claimed in the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that the bank’s supervisory board was now looking to replace Josef Ackermann, chief executive.
The newspaper said Thomas Fischer, chief executive of WestLB and a former rival of Mr Ackermann, had been approached. Mr Fischer was ousted from Deutsche Bank in 2002. The bank said it stood by supervisory board chairman Rolf Breuer’s weekend denial of any rift at the bank.
Frankfurt bankers insisted yesterday that – given the government’s interest in creating stronger German banks – a future trade sale of Postbank, the country’s leading retail bank, could still not be ruled out. They said that deteriorating conditions in world markets might still make a sale to Deutsche Bank a better bet than an IPO.
Deutsche’s guarded attitude could also be seen as an attempt to put pressure on both the government and Klaus Zumwinkel, Deutsche Post’s chairman. At the moment, Mr Zumwinkel has signalled his determination to keep the IPO route open.
Deutsche Post is currently planning to sell up to 49.9 per cent of Postbank next month. It has signalled that it wants to raise Euros 2.5bn-Euros 3bn.
