Deutsche Bank declares interest in Postbank sale

by Gill Montia

Story link: Deutsche Bank declares interest in Postbank sale

The chief executive of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, has expressed an interest in buying Deutsche Postbank, the retail banking unit of Deutsche Post.

Deutsche Post has been in talks for weeks with potential buyers for its majority stake in Postbank, which is Germany’s largest retail bank.

The business has almost 15 million customers and a market value in excess of $10 billion.

Deutsche Bank’s interest in the sale may have been prompted by the recent takeover of Germany’s Dresdner Bank by Commerzbank.

Dresdner’s owners, insurance giant Allianz, have sold the business for €9.8 billion.

The transaction, which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2009, will give the merged banks 1,200 branches in Germany, 11 million private customers and more than 100,000 corporate and institutional clients.

This will present strong competition for Duetsche Bank, which is keen to bolster its retail operations as it needs to expand its consumer banking and asset management businesses to offset a decline in investment banking.

In July Duetsche Bank failed in its attempt to buy Citigroup’s German consumer unit, which was acquired instead by France’s Credit Mutuel Group.