Aiming for more profit

Commerzbank cuts up to 4000 jobs

Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt am Main

(Bild: AFP )

Commerzbank has a total workforce of 42,000 employees. Now thousands of jobs are to be made redundant. Around 3,900 full-time positions will be cut by the end of 2027, 3,300 of them in Germany, the DAX-listed group announced in Frankfurt. 

At the same time, new jobs are to be created in other areas of the Group - for example at mBank in Poland and at locations in Asia - meaning that the Commerzbank Group's workforce will remain largely constant worldwide.

The Frankfurt-based bank wants to reduce its costs with the cutbacks and underpin its independence in the face of takeover bids from Italy's UniCredit (see chart below). 

Commerzbank has been under pressure since Unicredit took advantage of the German government's partial exit in the fall to acquire a large stake in Commerzbank. The Milan-based bank now controls a good 28% of the shares in the DAX-listed group, of which around 9.5% are held directly via shares and around 18.6% via financial instruments.

Graphic from September 2024: Unicredit joins Commerzbank

According to the bank, the reduction in Germany will primarily affect the head office and other locations in Frankfurt, in particular staff functions and the back office. Germany's second-largest retail bank currently has around 20,000 full-time employees in its home market.

Commerzbank intends to significantly increase its profits in the coming years. After just under 2.7 billion euros last year, net profit is set to rise to 4.2 billion euros by 2028. In the current year, however, profits are likely to fall to 2.4 billion euros because the job cuts will initially cost money: The bank expects this to cost around 700 million euros in the current year.