Commerzbank Board Upheaval Deepens as Three More Members Resign

(Bloomberg) -- Commerzbank AG’s top governance body was plunged into further turmoil after three board members resigned, adding to the tumult after the chairman and another board member stepped down in March.

Victoria Ossadnik, Rainer Hillebrand and Tobias Guldimann have decided to leave Commerzbank’s supervisory board, people familiar with the matter said. The lender has already identified candidates to replace them and might make an announcement about the changes as early as Thursday, the people said. All asked not to be identified discussing the information.

A representative for Commerzbank declined to comment. Ossadnik, Hillebrand and Guldimann didn’t immediately reply to WhatsApp or LinkedIn messages seeking comment. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported the departures late Wednesday.

The unprofitable German bank, already dealing with a major restructuring program, is trying to move on from its latest boardroom crisis. Hans-Joerg Vetter resigned as chairman in March for health reasons and the potential candidate to replace him, Andreas Schmitz, abruptly stepped aside last week. That leaves Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof without the backing of a strong chairman while he seeks to execute an ambitious turnaround plan that Vetter helped develop.

Schmitz left after a supervisory board meeting last week in which several members led by the government representative raised questions about a probe by prosecutors against him, people familiar with the matter have said. Schmitz called for a vote of confidence in him that he lost and then decided to resign, they said.

Ossadnik and Hillebrand were the two board members in addition to Schmitz himself who backed him in that vote and they later decided to leave the board as well, according to the FAZ report late Wednesday. Guldimann is leaving after failing to become chairman last summer when Vetter was appointed, FAZ wrote.

The German government is Commerzbank’s largest shareholder by far and one of its two supervisory board representatives, Jutta Doenges, played a crucial role in appointing Vetter last year. That appointment followed the joint resignation by Vetter’s predecessor, Stefan Schmittman, and the then-CEO Martin Zielke after a barrage of public and private criticism of the lender’s strategy by the government and another big investor, Cerberus Capital Management.

Commerzbank on Sunday nominated a candidate for the chairman role, Helmut Gottschalk.

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