19/06/2013
● Total reduction of around 5,200 positions across the Commerzbank Group
● No enforced redundancies until 2016 if agreed reduction targets are met
● Sieber: “Together with the employees’ representatives we have found a way to achieve considerable cost reductions, on the one hand, and to secure our competitiveness and earnings power through investment, on the other”
As part of the strategic agenda announced in November 2012, the Commerzbank Group will cut a total of 5,200 full-time equivalents by 2016. At the end of 2012 and at the beginning of this year, the Bank had already decided on a reduction of 800 full-time equivalents, primarily in the Non-Core Assets segment. A further reduction of 500 full-time equivalents is planned abroad and in the Group’s subsidiaries in Germany. The remaining job cuts of 3,900 full-time equivalents have now been approved by the Works Council of Commerzbank AG Germany. Of these cuts around 1,800 full-time equivalents will be affected in the Private Clients Segment, as announced in February of this year. On the other hand, the Group will invest in an increase of as many as 1,000 full-time equivalents so as to implement the Bank’s strategic agenda. As of 31 March 2013 Commerzbank employed around 45,000 full-time equivalents.
As part of its strategic agenda the Bank plans to invest more than 2 billion euros in the coming four years while maintaining a stable cost base. In order to achieve this, the Bank needs to increase its earnings power while further reducing its expenses through adjustments to the material and personnel cost bases.
The agreement reached today with the Works Council of Commerzbank AG Germany foresees an extension of the exclusion of enforced redundancies to 2016, originally offered until the end of 2014, if the agreed reduction targets are met. “It is our objective to implement these job cuts without enforced redundancies,” said Ulrich Sieber, responsible for Human Resources on the Board of Managing Directors of Commerzbank. “Together with the employees’ representatives we have found a way to achieve considerable cost reductions, on the one hand, while securing our competitiveness and earnings power through investment, on the other.”
Alternative positions will be brokered for as many affected employees as possible through an internal job board and so-called M.O.V.E. centres. These support centres will provide employees with an overview of vacant positions throughout the Bank and are competence centres for the regional external job market.
About Commerzbank
Commerzbank is a leading bank in Germany and Poland. It is also present worldwide in all markets for its customers as a partner to the business world. With the business areas Private Customers, Mittelstandsbank, Corporates & Markets and Central & Eastern Europe, it offers its private and corporate clients as well as institutional investors the banking and capital market services they need. With some 1,200 branches Commerzbank has one of the densest branch networks among German private banks. In total, Commerzbank boasts nearly 15 million private customers, as well as 1 million business and corporate clients. In 2012, it generated revenues of just under EUR 10 billion with approximately 56,000 employees on average.
