Why Deutsche Bank boss Sewing isn’t considering a takeover

However, investors on the stock exchange give Deutsche Bank a significantly higher market value than Commerzbank: Deutsche Bank has 24.5 billion euros, Commerzbank 13.3 billion euros. So couldn’t one major Frankfurt bank swallow the other? There were similar considerations a few years ago.
I also think that is unlikely. Such a takeover initially causes massive integration costs, for example for the reduction of employees. Mergers often enable companies to reduce their costs in the medium to long term. But to do this, among other things, the IT systems would have to be integrated – which causes enormous costs. Added to this is the complexity: Commerzbank already had to go through this when it took over Dresdner Bank during the financial crisis. Commerzbank was busy with this for years. And last year, Deutsche Bank merged the IT of its subsidiary Postbank into its own systems – with the well-known, disastrous consequences. There is also a third reason that speaks against a merger between Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank: Because numerous, especially German, companies are customers of both institutions, the companies would withdraw business from the merged bank. This would be a precautionary measure, especially for medium-sized and larger companies that want to avoid concentrating their banking relationships.