(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG should walk away from takeover talks with rival Commerzbank AG and see out its standalone recovery plan, a member of its supervisory board said on Thursday.
“We believe in” the existing strategies of both banks and each one should work on their implementation separately, Jan Duscheck, a labor union representative on the bank's supervisory board, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV with Matthew Miller. Deutsche Bank just needs “the markets and analysts” to give it more time to put the strategy in place, he said.
Deutsche Bank announced merger talks with Commerzbank about a month ago as its seeks to reverse years of declining revenue and low profitability. Labor representatives at both banks have since been unflinching in their opposition to the idea. An announcement on whether talks will proceed will come by the end of next week, the bank has said.
A takeover of Commerzbank could put as many as 40,000 jobs at risk and wouldn't improve Deutsche Bank's business model, Duscheck said in the interview. He also suggested boycotting ongoing job cut talks with Deutsche Bank related to the merger of the Postbank retail unit with its other German retail bank.
Labor representatives of both lenders “have agreed that it's not possible in case of a merger to simply continue to work on the Postbank integration,” Duscheck said. That process would be “seriously jeopardized” by a merger plan.
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Arons in Frankfurt at sarons@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net, Ross Larsen, Keith Campbell
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