Deutsche Post rejects Commerzbank’s advances to Postbank unit

Deutsche Post, the semi-privatised German postal authority, rejected Monday the advances made by Germany’s fourth-biggest bank Commerzbank to Deutsche Post’s banking unit Postbank.

“There aren’t and have not been any talks with Commerzbank,” a Deutsche Post spokeswoman said, adding that no changes were planned in Postbank’s capital structure.

In a newspaper interview at the weekend, Commerzbank chairman Klaus-Peter Mueller had expressed an interest in a possible merger with Postbank.

“If we were to merge with Postbank, we’d become the biggest bank for private customers in Europe,” Mueller told the Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

Postbank, which has also been coveted by Germany’s biggest bank Deutsche Bank in the past, has a 11-percent share of the high-street banking market in Germany.

Deutsche Post floated 33 percent of Postbank’s share capital on the stock exchange in June with a further 16.9 percent to be sold to investors by way of a convertible bond.