Commerzbank is reorganizing the management again: in the future, a banker from Austria will be responsible for human resources. Risk chief Chromik, during whose time the loss-making loan to Wirecard falls, will leave the institute in the coming year.
Several changes are in the offing in the top management committee of Commerzbank. Sabine Mlnarsky, 47, who previously worked for Erste Bank in Austria, will succeed Sabine Schmittroth as head of HR at Germany’s second largest private bank, as the supervisory board announced on Tuesday. At the same time, risk director Marcus Chromik “informed” the committee that he would not accept a possible offer to extend his contract after his second term expired in 2023. After just six years on the top management body, the head of risk was already the longest-serving board member at the bank. In an internal statement, the head of the supervisory board, Helmut Gottschalk, praised Chromik verbosely for his prudent risk management. The departure has nothing to do with the loss-making loan from the bank to the bankrupt company Wirecard, emphasized in circles at the institute.
Working shoulder to shoulder with other institutions, Commerzbank was one of Wirecard’s major financiers, and from the summer of 2018 even led a consortium that had given the cheating group an enormous credit line of 1.75 billion euros – at a time when it was already very critical gave press coverage. Just a few months before bankruptcy in the summer of 2020, Wirecard almost completely pulled the line, money that was then gone forever. Commerzbank, which is also having to implement a tough austerity program, was forced to fully write off the loan of 187 million euros.
However, no one on the Management Board was held responsible for the failure. The supervisory board dealt extensively with the loan to Wirecard, but found no misconduct, Gottschalk, who only took office after the Wirecard case, emphasized at the most recent general meeting in May. The control committee had its own assessment that there was no misconduct checked by a law firm. A corresponding application of a shareholder for non-discharge of the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board was rejected.
From 2019, the money house actually had growing concerns, as Chromik admitted to the parliamentary committee of inquiry into Wirecard in mid-January 2021, especially after its own fraud department found numerous anomalies in payments from Wirecard and reported suspected money laundering to the authorities. The bank wanted to exit the exposure but did not conclude that it was hedging the credit risk as some other banks were doing. An analyst from the bank, who had long praised Wirecard enthusiastically, gave the management team free rein until the end.