Overview
- Commerzbank, which detailed the plan Friday, will remove about 3,000 positions by 2030, with a very large share tied to artificial intelligence.
- The bank says it will first shrink outside call-center capacity and reduce external IT contractors to spare core staff from compulsory layoffs.
- Management frames the cuts as a defense against UniCredit’s takeover, which offers 0.485 UniCredit shares for each Commerzbank share and seeks to build on a stake near 30%.
- The acceptance window runs until June 16, with a possible extension to July 3, and the bank says it will issue a formal response to the offer early next week.
- Political and supervisory friction has grown as Berlin, which owns about 12%, opposes the deal, BaFin reprimanded UniCredit over a social-media campaign, and ECB vice president Luis de Guindos criticized Germany’s resistance.