Hypovereinsbank – Slugfest in Bavaria

Two crucial meetings this month may settle the uncertain future of Bavarian giant HypoVereinsbank, in turmoil since chairman Albrecht Schmidt and merger partner Eberhard Martini had a very public row. Auditors, former board members and the Munich state prosecutor are embroiled in a high-octane war. It was born in the euphoria of German unification, brewed in the property slump of the late 1990s, and exploded into a battle of numbers that no-one can win. David Shirreff reports.

On December 9 hundreds of senior managers of HypoVereinsbank, Germany’s second biggest bank, will converge on Munich to listen to their executive chairman Albrecht Schmidt.

Schmidt, known internally as “little Napoleon”, will explain to them how it was not his vanity and over-vaulting ambition that paralyzed the bank for a year. Far from it. It was a necessary, if rather slow blood-letting, to purge the bank – the result of a 1998 merger between Bayerische Vereinsbank (BV), previously run by Schmidt, and Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank (Hypobank) – of its worst Hypobank elements.

Access intelligence that drives action

To unlock this research, enter your email to log in or enquire about access