Commerzbank interested in takeover of Postbank
Shares of Deutsche Postbank, which has more clients than any other German bank, rose sharply Thursday after Commerzbank said it would be interested in a takeover.
Postbank shares jumped as much as 5 percent, their biggest gain since Dec. 20, 2005, and closed up euro 2.18, or 3.5 percent, at euro 63.93 in Frankfurt. Commerzbank shares gained 60 cents to close at euro 34.95.
”If it were possible to buy Postbank, we would immediately snap it up,” a Commerzbank management board member, Wolfgang Hartmann, said in an interview late Wednesday. ”Unfortunately, Deutsche Post AG isn’t ready to sell at the moment.”
Commerzbank, which lost out in the bidding for Landesbank Berlin Holding earlier this month, is looking to expand further domestically after buying the mortgage bank Eurohypo in 2006. The Deutsche Post chief executive, Klaus Zumwinkel, said last month that the company does not plan to sell its majority stake in Postbank.
”A combination of Commerzbank and Postbank would create a very strong player in retail, commercial banking and real estate,” said Thomas Rothaeusler, an analyst at Sal Oppenheim in Frankfurt. ”It would also probably be a preferred option for Germany, from a political point of view.”
The German banking industry is dominated by state-owned lenders, which control about half of the market and cannot be bought by private competitors.
As European banking consolidation accelerates, publicly traded German banks are being left further behind in terms of their market share.
Commerzbank has 5.2 million clients in Germany, while Postbank has about 14.6 million.
