Deutsche Postbank

Not to be confused with Deutsche Bank or Deutsche Bundesbank.
Deutsche Postbank AG
Aktiengesellschaft
Traded as FWB: DPB
Industry Financial services
Founded 1990
Headquarters Bonn, Germany
Key people
Frank Strauss (CEO and Chairman of the executive board), Rainer Neske (Chairman of the supervisory board)
Products Retail banking, insurance, loans
Revenue €3.805 billion (2010)[1]
Profit €138 million (2010)[1]
Total assets €214.68 billion (end 2010)[1]
Total equity €5.627 billion (end 2010)[1]
Number of employees
20,360 (FTE, end 2010)[1]
Parent Deutsche Bank
Website www.postbank.com

Deutsche Postbank AG is a German retail bank with headquarters in Bonn. Postbank was formed from the demerger of the postal savings division of Deutsche Bundespost in 1990. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Post in 1999, and was partially spun out on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2004. Deutsche Post retained a controlling stake of 50% plus one share until September 2008, when 30% of this was sold to Deutsche Bank for €2.8 billion.[2] Deutsche Bank gained a majority stake in the firm through a tender offer completed in December 2010,[3] and exercised its option[2] to acquire the remainder of Deutsche Post's holding in 2012.[3][4]

History

The Postscheckdienst was introduced in 1909 by the German Reich establishing accounts for payment transactions by mail and linking postal and banking services in German states.

In 1990, following the German Postal Services Restructuring Act (Poststrukturgesetz) of 1989, the German Postal Service (Deutsche Bundespost) was divided into three companies, Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom and Postbank. Later that year, Deutsche Post Postbank of the former East Germany was merged with Postbank. From 1990 to 1997, Dr. Guenter Schneider was chairman of the board. The first board of Postbank consisted of Guenter Schneider, Rudolf Bauer and Bernhard Zurhorst.

On 1 January 1995, following the new postal reform legislation (Gesetze zur Postreform II) of 1994, Postbank became an independent, joint stock company. Postbank then extended operations, and engaged in loans, insurance and homes savings.

In 1999, Deutsche Post became the owner of Postbank. In that same year, Postbank acquired DSL Bank by the sale of the government's shares.

Postbank subsidiary easytrade began offering on-line brokerage services in 2000.

Postbank purchased BHF (USA) Holdings Inc. in 2001.

By 2003, Postbank had 11.5 million customers, more than any other bank in Germany.

On 1 January 2004 the postal bank took over the transaction banking of the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank. From then on Postbank executed the clearing and settlement of Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank's payment transactions. This agreement strengthened the bank’s new business field "Transaction Bank" in the apron of the announced Initial Public Offering.

The IPO of Postbank on 23 June 2004 was the largest stock market launch in Germany for the past 2 years.

On 25 October 2005 Postbank announced its intention to acquire a 76.4 percent stake of the home financing specialist, Beamten-Heimstättenwerk (BHW). With the acquisition of BHW Deutsche Postbank became Germany’s leading financial services provider for retail customers.

On 1 January 2006 the purchase of BHW Holding by Deutsche Postbank was concluded. Beyond that Deutsche Postbank took over 850 branches from Deutsche Post. Along with the change in ownership, around 9,600 employees switched employer, bringing Postbank's workforce to over 25,000 employees.

In October 2010, Postbank put its Indian finance business up for sale.[5]

Key figures

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Annual Report 2010" (PDF). Deutsche Postbank. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Seib, Christine (13 September 2008). "Deutsche Bank makes £2.2bn U-turn to buy stake in Postbank". The Times (London). Retrieved 2008-09-14.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Wilson, James (2 December 2010). "Deutsche to leave Postbank alone after merger". Financial Times. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  4. Deutsche Postbank AG: Resolution on the conclusion of a control and profit and loss transfer agreement between Deutsche Postbank AG as the controlled entity and DB Finanz-Holding GmbH as the controlling entity https://www.postbank.com/postbank/en/2012_03_30.html
  5. "Deutsche Postbank arm for sale". business-standard.com. 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2011.

External links

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