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The article focuses on some issues related to economy. The tragic close of the career of William Chapman Ralston, founder of the Bank of California, and the revelations which have been made about his relations to that great developing agent, the Bank of California, are leading people to reflect and talk a good deal about the dangers and temptations of the monarchical system of bank management. It has been remarked, and very truly, that almost invariably, when any great calamity overtakes a financial institution nowadays, it is discovered that, although the machinery of its government is thoroughly democratic, and although it appears to the outside world to be managed in the democratic way through a representative assembly, it has really been managed by one man, who alone had an intimate knowledge of its condition and alone wielded its resources. M. Laveleye, the well-known Belgian economist, has in a recent article in the journal Revue des Deux Mondes given his countenance in a rather strong form to the doctrines of a new school of professional economists in Germany, called by themselves the Historical School, and by their enemies the Socialist School, and having economist Cliffe Leslie as their principal ally in England.

The corporate customer business of German banks is recovering thanks to rising interest rates and strong demand. The Corporate Banking Index of the management consulting firm Bain & Company shows that revenues and profitability reached new highs in the second half of 2022. The banks were able to increase their loan margins, and corporate loan volume rose by 12 percent to nearly 1.5 trillion euros. Nevertheless, Bain partner Dr. Christian Graf warns against excessive euphoria, as rising interest rates increase refinancing costs and competition offers limited margin opportunities. Banks should reduce their dependence on lending and invest in fee-based business areas to increase profitability regardless of the interest cycle. [Extracted from the article]

The article reports on the appointment of German banker Christian Sewing as chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank. It mentions the attempt to plan Deutsche Bank's future, its retreat from international investment banking, and dealing with increased banking regulations.

The article features one of the major dealmaker Josef Ackermann, management board member of Deutsche Bank in Germany. Ackermann is acknowledged for his outstanding contribution towards the success of the bank recovery. He is recognized for his entrepreneurial skills in placing the bank on top in the initial public offering (IPO) issuance. He aims to develop the bank as one of the world's major advisers on merger and acquisitions.

The article discusses a 2009 project by the Evangelische Kreditgenossenschaft Kassel eG, the goal of which was to ascertain the most effective management strategy for sustainable banking. The EKK concluded from the project that economic success could only be achieved through a balance of economic, ecological, and socioethical management practices. The article also discusses the influence of the MaRisk risk management guidelines for German credit institutions on the EKK's management strategy.

The article discusses tactics for customer retention by means of data mining, client analysis, and smart regulations. It offers the findings of a poll on banking insight conducted by the German economics periodical "Handelsblatt" and the enterprise consultant company msgGillardon, in which small business owning clients were asked about their choice of bank.

The article presents an argument that banks must strengthen their customer orientation, replacing the older model whereby bank strategists were considered ruthlessly efficient and detached from personal concerns. The author argues that in future banks must put more resources into customer orientation, Internet Technology (IT) in particular, which can also be made profitable.

Deutsche Bank's "ultimate strength" is in home country "Germany needs a bank that will continue to be one of the most important players globally", said Andreas Meyer, who manages about 1.4 billion euros at Aramea Asset Management in Hamburg, including holdings of Deutsche Bank subordinated bonds. [Extracted from the article]

Ferdinand Graf von Galen, former partner of the private banking house Schroder, Munchmeyer, Hengst, has been in the Preungesheim maximum security prison in Germany since December 16, 1984. That was the day after he returned to Germany from France to answer questions on the crash of his bank, together with the world's fourth biggest construction equipment empire IBH, 13 months earlier. His bank has been the subject of a spectacular near-collapse and rescue operations in November 1983. The bank had built up DM900 million of exposure to the Esch group. His bank's crash lost Galen his fortune and cost the German banks about DM750 million which has made them very angry.

Presents an interview with Walter Seipp, chairman of the board at West Germany-based Commerzbank. Seipp has energetically steered Commerzbank back to profitability since he took over the helm in 1981. The moment of highest challenge was to recognize the full extent of the bank's problems in detail at the time. What was lacking was not capable people on the board, but integration and full cooperation within it, with clear-cut policy discussions involving each board member. His foremost priority was to create a new spirit, based on the conviction that Commerzbank would be successful, based on a more objective approach to problems within the bank, based on clear-cut policy targets, and based on a broader and deeper analysis of the bank in its various parts.

Commerzbank AG, one of West Germany's Big Three banks, may sell commercial paper in the United States for the first time in its history. Its New York, New York branch is flush with dollar deposits from corporate clients. Entry into the commercial paper market would complete the bank's arsenal of available funding instruments. Since Walter Seipp took over as chairman in early 1981, Commerzbank has broken with its conservative past in many ways. Commerzbank has become a motivated organization with a man at the helm who has very decisive ideas on how to run a bank. More decentralized, more risk-conscious, and more profit-orientated than ever before, Commerzbank Group posted record operating earnings in 1984 and 1983.

Germany's banks have bounced back, due partly to the export boom inspired by the strong American dollar and partly to the resurgence of retail business, car sales, and housing starts in the Federal Republic. Their recovery is also due to better bank management. Banks have achieved a closer matching of their funding to their global assets, a slight increase in off-balance-sheet business, and the cutting of branching costs. They concentrated on prudence and efficiency after the tightening of lending ratios and the consolidation of group balance sheets under banking law revisions in Bonn, Frankfurt, and Berlin. Taking all German banks together, there is an overhang of about 70 billion Deutschemarks. INSET: Room at the top in Liechtenstein..

In this article the author examines the plan of Deutsche Bank to develop its business at its home, Germany, in 2006. The author interviews Jürgen Fitschen about the initiative. Fitschen tells the author that his bank does not intend to imitate rivals' indiscriminate wooing of medium-size companies. Local bankers nevertheless say that one of the reasons for Deutsche's creation of a German management committee was the increasingly pressing need for the bank to be seen to be making a public statement about its commitment to the German market. A reason why it will be a tough assignment to navigate Deutsche through its German strategy lies in the character of the bank's domestic business.

Cites the efforts of Deutsche Bank chairman Josef Ackermann in blocking the plans of overseas banks to take over the bank, thus preventing additional job losses in the German banking industry. Allegations of left-wing socialists and unemployed bank workers that Ackermann is overpaid; Compensation package received by Ackermann; Problems hounding the German banking industry.

WestLB's boss, Jürgen Sengera, has paid for his indulgence of a flashy London unit, headed by Robin Saunders. More troubles loom for Germany's state banks. A payoff of €325m ($3.75m), but not a word of thanks, came Sengera's way on June 23rd, when his supervisory board ousted him as executive chairman of WestLB, Germany's most aggressive publicly owned bank. The board's decision followed a damning report by BaFin, Germany's financial regulator, on the shoddy control by WestLB of its principal-finance unit in London. The proximate cause was a single bad deal, credit exposure to Boxclever, a British TV-rental firm, for which WestLB last month took a belated, extra €430m charge on its 2002 accounts. Andreas Seibert, the board member who until this year had been responsible for overseeing the London unit, went along with Mr Sengera. Meanwhile, Robin Saunders, a Texan who runs the principal-finance unit and who until a few months ago was the subject of a string of fawning newspaper profiles, is still in her job. The savings banks, it seems, would like to shrink WestLB back to its original role as a Landesbank (state bank), acting as their central bank and source of wholesale financial services. Last year the bank was revamped to comprise a holding company with a state guarantee, Landesbank NRW, which owns a joint-stock commercial bank, WestLB.

Trinkaus & Burkhardt has established itself as uncontested leader in financial innovation among German banks. Dusseldorf, Germany-based institution, majority-owned by Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp., has lead-managed a dazzling succession of bonds, warrants and options employing the hill range of derivative instruments. It has been a global leader in warrants, its deals include compound, money-back, step-down, capped and range warrants and has pioneered reverse floaters, currency options, dual-currency bonds, zero bonds and floor certificates. In more than 400 issues from mid-1986 to mid-1993, the institution has brought financing techniques widely used abroad to conservative German markets guarded by a Bundesbank and Grossbanken, which have resisted change. Transformation of the bank from a tired also-ran at the end of the 1970s has resulted from a mixture of tradition, international networking, modern management and banking skill. A new phase began in 1980, when Midland acquired Trinkaus from Citibank.

The article reports that a change in strategy has been proposed by the management board of HSH Nordbank to the supervisory board, with the bank concentrating its business in the north of Germany. As part of the strategy, HSH will reduce its portfolios, spin off non-strategic activities and structure itself as a regional core bank. HSH will also shrink its balance sheet by Eu80 billion (bn) to Eu120bn. Furthermore, HSH plans to exit its energy business in the U.S. in the medium term and the New York office, headed by Klaus Bernhard, will be scaled back.

The article focuses on the banks Barclays and Deutsche Bank. The two firms have rejected participation in the bailout plans offered the financial services industry by their respective governments of Great Britain and Germany. This decision has forced them to raise capital at higher costs. It has also failed to reassure investors that both can survive the ongoing financial crisis.

The article focuses on the Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany. The bank's trading floor, across town, is one of Europe's largest. Klaus-Peter Müller, the bank's chief executive, has been reducing his empire.The new size and financial health of Germany's fourth-largest bank have attracted fresh takeover rumours. The latest suitors are said to be BNP Paribas of France and Santander Central Hispano of Spain. The watershed for Müller was the departure of Mehmet Dalman, head of investment banking, who had tried to make the bank a global player in equities. Commerzbank is now concentrating on its German retail and corporate customers. It has not vanished from the market, but it can no longer be called a Grossbank--a big universal bank to rival Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, or even Dresdner Bank, the number three, owned by Allianz, an insurer. In fact Müller is more inclined to compare his bank with Sal Oppenheim and Metzler, two small but highly profitable corporate-finance and investment houses in Frankfurt. Müller says that profitability is more important than market share.

The article looks at a joint venture between Japan's Shinsei Bank and WestLB and Nord/LB, two publicly owned German banks. Shinsei Bank's most visible shareholder is JC Flowers, a fund manager that invests in distressed debt. For Shinsei's German venture, called SGK, the German banks will each put in $240 million of bad loans and rely on JC Flowers to extract their residual value. JC Flowers was not the first American investment fund to enter the German bad-loan market, but it has been the first to offer German banks a share of the spoils.

The article discusses whether the abrupt departure of Ulrich Cartellieri from Deutsche Bank's supervisory board will weaken or strengthen Josef Ackermann, the bank's beleaguered chief executive. Only the day before, Germany's biggest bank had announced a shake-up in its management structure. The monthly that broke the story of Cartellieri's departure, "Manager Magazin," claims that others on the supervisory board share his reservations about Ackermann's running of the bank. Several German newspapers, which have taken to criticising Ackermann, have argued that he has lost the credibility to see through the acquisition of another big German bank, which they believe is now needed to bolster Deutsche's customer and capital base. On the other hand, a number of investment bankers believe that without Cartellieri around, Ackermann will be freer to pursue the goal he has set the bank. Ackermann may have streamlined the structure, but his ability to steer a new course is still in question.

Discusses the problems facing the management of Deutsche Bank in Germany in June 2004. Rumors regarding plans to unseat Josef Ackermann, chairman of Deutsche Bank; Sentiments of financial institutions in Great Britain regarding Ackermann; Growth plans of Ackermann.

The article reports on the financial troubles of German bank Commerzbank AG. Credit-Derivative prices, which are fast becoming a leading indicator of market sentiment, can sometimes overshoot. They may have done so this week in the case of Commerzbank, a once-big German universal bank, whose share price came under attack on rumors that the bank had undisclosed trading losses. The share price fell by 23% in four days, before recovering a little on October 9, 2002. Since the last week of September the apparent risk of a Commerzbank default, on the basis of derivative prices, has nearly trebled. The investment bank, with its emphasis on equity business, is a costly, loss- making mistake and needs to change emphasis or vanish.

Looks at how Josef Ackermann, spokesman/chief executive of Deutsche Bank's managing board is trying to establish Deutsche as a top-five investment bank. Deutsche as Germany's biggest bank; The importance of improving the share price of the bank; Reorganization at the bank, including job cuts; The bank's need to determine which businesses in which it should be involved; The selling-off of Deutsche's industrial shareholdings.

The article provides information on the expectations of Josef Ackermann, speaker of Deutsche Bank AG's management board or Vorstand, for the business of the biggest bank in Germany. Ackermann expects that the plans of Deutsche which is to cut non-interest costs by two million euro or more by the end of 2003, to accelerate sales of shareholdings in other big German companies, and to make more money out of business and private customers will work out.

Commerzbank booked all of the €807m restructuring costs associated with its 'Commerzbank 4.0' programme in the second quarter, pushing the bank to an overall loss of €406m. But the bank's management are optimistic about the second half of the year, and argue that some of its businesses have turned a corner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that Finnish packaging firm Huhtamäki has launched a dual currency or bilateral loans called Schuldschein. Topics discussed include opportunities offered by banking firms Commerzbank and Helaba to add dollar tranches to Huhtamäki Schuldschein transactions, attraction of euro tranches with the European commercial banks and institutional investors from German Schuldschein banker, and increase of international and domestic commercial banks in the market.

Discusses German banking practices in light of a study challenging conventional wisdom. Details of the study, by Jeremy Edwards of Cambridge University and Klaus Fischer of the University of Bonn, which reviews the way German banks conduct practices as opposed to their Anglo-Saxon counterparts; Details.

News briefs as of February 17, 2011, concerning economic conditions and business climate in Germany are presented. Forecasts for the German real estate market predicted a significant acceleration for 2011. German banks began investing more in their marketing, customer service, and strategic planning operations. The Bundesverband deutscher Banken (National Association of German Banks, BdB) predicted economic growth of 2.3 percent in Germany in 2011.