Status: 04/12/2022 10:38 a.m
The shares of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are under a lot of pressure today. The reason: After the exit of the US hedge fund Cerberus, the two institutes lost another large investor.
Deutsche Bank was down more than ten percent in the morning. Commerzbank shares have lost almost nine percent. The reason is a multi-billion dollar share sale by a previously unknown investor.
Capital Group or Blackrock?
Yesterday evening, the investment bank Morgan Stanley placed two blocks of shares in the two major German banks, each with more than five percent, from the same investor. Morgan Stanley did not name the seller. However, only the US asset managers Blackrock and Capital Group have reported stakes in Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank of this magnitude.
The Los Angeles-based Capital Group, one of the world’s largest investors, increased its stake in Deutsche Bank to more than five percent in November. She has held a similarly large stake in Commerzbank, which is listed on the MDAX, since October 2020. Blackrock’s holdings are mostly in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which track one of the major stock indices.
High price deductions accepted
The price reaction is also so strong because the investor accepted high price discounts when exiting. According to the commissioned bank, 116 million Deutsche Bank shares should be sold at at least 10.98 euros, which is almost eight percent less than the Xetra closing price on Monday. 72.5 million Commerzbank papers were to be placed for EUR 6.55 each, a good six percent below the previous closing price. Overall, the sales should have flushed the investor a total of 1.75 billion euros.
According to the Bloomberg news agency, all papers have been placed. The demand was always significantly higher than the supply. Recently, the prices of the two bank stocks have fallen below the investor’s sell limit.
Cerberus dropped out at the beginning of the year
Before the start of the Ukraine war, financial stocks had performed comparatively well: the imminent turnaround in interest rates is tending to benefit the banking business because larger differences between investment and lending rates can be collected.
At the beginning of the year, the American hedge fund Cerberus sold large parts of its Deutsche and Commerzbank shares and now holds less than three percent of both banks. According to insiders, Cerberus had bet on a bank merger – a bet that didn’t work out. The big merger between the two houses, which was talked about again and again, never materialized, nor was there a merger with a foreign institute.