Commerzbank Annual General Meeting: New Supervisory Board members elected

At Tuesday’s virtual Annual General Meeting (AGM), Commerzbank shareholders elected Helmut Gottschalk, Burkhard Keese, Daniela Mattheus, Caroline Seifert, and Frank Westhoff by a large majority to the Bank’s Supervisory Board, as proposed. The duration of the appointments will run until the end of the 2023 AGM. At a Supervisory Board meeting immediately following the AGM, Helmut Gottschalk was re-elected as Chairman of the Board. He had previously been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board by court order in April 2021 and had afterwards been elected as Chairman of the Supervisory Board by the members. This mandate ended at the close of today’s AGM.

“I will devote all my commitment, professional experience, and energy to Commerzbank. I want to make a contribution to bringing this tradition-rich bank back to success,” said Gottschalk. He succeeds Hans-Jörg Vetter, who resigned from his post on 16 March 2021 for health reasons. “On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I would like to express my sincere thanks for Mr. Vetter’s great commitment and the important impetus he has provided. We wish him all the best and much strength,” Gottschalk said during the AGM.

The further changes to the Bank’s 20-member Supervisory Board had become necessary after Andreas Schmitz resigned his mandate on 24 March 2021, and Tobias Guldimann, Rainer Hillebrand, and Victoria Ossadnik resigned their mandates at the end of the AGM.

“We are tackling the transformation of Commerzbank quickly and decisively. Our ‘Strategy 2024’ stands for customer orientation, digitalisation, sustainability, and profitability,” said Manfred Knof, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors since the beginning of this year, in his speech to the shareholders. “We have clearly outlined the structures needed and we have taken the first steps. We will do everything we can to make Commerzbank efficient and sustainably profitable again. We want to become the digital advisory bank in Germany. I will not let up until we reach our goal, since the German economy, the German Mittelstand, and our retail customers need a strong, reliable, and independent Commerzbank.”

Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Commerzbank’s AGM was again held as a virtual event this year. Shareholders voted on the key items on the agenda as follows:

Ratification of actions (items 2 and 3)

The AGM ratified the Board of Managing Directors’ actions as well as the Supervisory Board’s actions with a majority of 99.4% and 86.9% respectively.

Election of the auditors (items 4 and 5)

Moreover, the AGM cleared the way for the planned change of the auditor. For the fiscal year 2021, EY was elected as auditor for the last time with 99.5%. For any interim financial statements in the period after 31 December 2021 until the AGM in 2022, the shareholders elected KPMG as the new auditor with 99.9%. It is planned that the AGM in 2022 will then also elect KPMG as the new auditor for the full fiscal year 2022.

Election of new Supervisory Board members (item 6)

With a large majority of more than 99% Helmut Gottschalk (Former Chairman of the Supervisory Board of DZ Bank), Burkhard Keese (Chief Financial Officer, Lloyd’s of London), Daniela Mattheus (Attorney-at-law, Governance Advisor), Caroline Seifert (Management Consultant for Transformation), and Frank Westhoff (Former Member of the Board of Managing Directors of DZ Bank) were elected to the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank.

Agreement on profit transfer agreement with CommerzVentures GmbH (item 7)

The AGM approved the profit transfer agreement with CommerzVentures GmbH concluded on 1 March 2021 between Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft (as parent company) and CommerzVentures GmbH (as subsidiary) (99.7%).