Dresdner Bank AGAktiengesellschaft is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders, and may be traded on a stock market...
was one of
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
's largest banking corporations and was based in
FrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2008 population of 670,000. The urban area had an estimated population of 2.26 million in 2001...
.
Dresdner Bank was established on 12 November 1872 through the conversion of financial institution Michael Kaskel. Dresdner Bank founding consortium consisted of Allgemeine Deutsche Creditanstalt, Leipzig, Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Deutsche Vereinsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Deutsche Effecten- und Wechselbank, Frankfurt am Main, and Anglo-Deutsche Bank, Hamburg with an initial capital of 8 million
ThalerThe Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
s (24 million Marks) and 30 employees in Wilsdruffer Strasse in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
.
Dresdner Bank AGAktiengesellschaft is a German term that refers to a corporation that is limited by shares, i.e. owned by shareholders, and may be traded on a stock market...
was one of
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
's largest banking corporations and was based in
FrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2008 population of 670,000. The urban area had an estimated population of 2.26 million in 2001...
.
19th century
Dresdner Bank was established on 12 November 1872 through the conversion of financial institution Michael Kaskel. Dresdner Bank founding consortium consisted of Allgemeine Deutsche Creditanstalt, Leipzig, Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Deutsche Vereinsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Deutsche Effecten- und Wechselbank, Frankfurt am Main, and Anglo-Deutsche Bank, Hamburg with an initial capital of 8 million
ThalerThe Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in various currencies as the dollar or tolar. Etymologically, "Thaler" is an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler", a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, where some of the first such...
s (24 million Marks) and 30 employees in Wilsdruffer Strasse in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. In 1870s, Dresdner Bank acquired smaller regional institutes and several banks. The new branch in Berlin quickly exceeded the office in Dresden; therefore, the registered office moved to Berlin in 1884 leaving the place of jurisdiction in Dresden until 1950. After few new acquisitions, (even the acquisition of founder of Anglo-Deutsche Bank) opened the first international branch in London in 1895. By 1900, Dresdner bank had the largest German branch network. During the First World War, the London branch was forced to close; however, the branch network expanded in overall.
Early 20th century
After the banking crisis in 1931 the German Reich owned 66% and Deutsche Golddiskontbank owned 22% of Dresdner Bank shares. Its deputy director was
Dr SchachtDr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic, and President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939...
, Minister of Economy under
NazismNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
. The Bank was reprivatised in 1937.
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Dresdner Bank controlled various banks in countries under German Occupation. It took over the Bohemian Discount Bank in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
, the Societa Bancara Romana in
BucharestBucharest is the capital city, industrial and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmboviţa River....
, the Handels- und Kreditbank in
RigaRiga is the capital and largest city of Latvia, a major industrial, commercial, cultural and financial centre of the Baltics, and an important seaport, situated on the mouth of the Daugava...
, the Kontinentale Bank in
BrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium...
, and
Banque d'AthenesThe Bank of Athens was a bank in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 1893 and merged in 1999. It continued the name of an earlier but no longer operating Anglo-Greek bank that Michel Emmanuel Rodocanachi had established in the UK.-History:...
. It maintained majority control of the Croatian Landerbank and the Kommerzialbank in
KrakówKraków , in English also spelled Krakow or Cracow and pronounced
, is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland and a popular tourist destination. Its historic centre was inscribed on the list of World Heritage Sites as the first of its kind...
and the Deutsche Handels- und Kreditbank in
BratislavaBratislava is the capital of the Slovak Republic and, with a population of about 429,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River...
. It took over the French interests in the Hungarian General Bank and the Greek Credit Bank, and it founded the Handelstrust West N. V. in
AmsterdamAmsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country...
. It also controlled Banque Bulgare de Commerce in
SofiaSofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city by population in the European Union, with 1.4 million people living in the Capital Municipality...
and the Deutsche Orient-Bank in
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
.
As a result of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
80% of the Bank's buildings were destroyed, costing the Bank 162 offices in 56 locations.
Post World War II era
Monetary reform and the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in 1948 helped return banking to normality.
Dresdner Bank expanded its network with acquisition and opening new offices not only in Europe but also in the United States, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Dresdner Bank was the first to open its own office in former
eastern GermanyEastern Germany may refer to:* New federal states of Germany, the states that joined the Federal Republic of Germany after 1990Historically:* Former eastern territories of Germany, territories lost by Germany during and after the two world wars...
in Dresden in 2 January 1990. After the acquisition of
Kleinwort BensonKleinwort Benson has been a wealth adviser for over 200 years offering an extensive range of bespoke solutions spanning wealth management, for private individuals, to fund administration services, for corporate clients....
in 1995 to form its investment-banking arm
Dresdner KleinwortDresdner Kleinwort was a British-based investment bank: it disappeared as a brand from the world of investment banking in September 2009, when its remaining businesses adopted the Commerzbank branding.-History:...
, Dresdner Bank took over the American investment bank
Wasserstein Perella Group Inc.Wasserstein Perella & Co. was an investment bank established by Bruce Wasserstein and Joseph R. Perella in 1988, former bankers at First Boston Corp., until its eventual sale to Dresdner Bank in 2000 for some $1.4 billion in stock...
, New York in 2000. This investment banking unit was then renamed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
Allianz era
In 2002 Dresdner Bank became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance corporation
Allianz SE is one of the largest financial services providers in the world, headquartered in Munich, Germany.Its core business and focus is insurance...
. In July 2006
Dresdner KleinwortDresdner Kleinwort was a British-based investment bank: it disappeared as a brand from the world of investment banking in September 2009, when its remaining businesses adopted the Commerzbank branding.-History:...
, dropped Wasserstein from their name and went through a re-organization of corporate bank, capital markets and investment bank. The arm made up of Capital Markets and Investment Banking.
In 2008 it was reported that Allianz was looking to dispose of Dresdner Bank. British banking group
Lloyds TSBIn January 2009, Lloyds TSB Group changed its name to Lloyds Banking Group. This article is now about the brand Lloyds TSB which is still operated as part of the Lloyds Banking Group....
were amongst those rumoured to be interested. However, by July that year Lloyds TSB had denied any interest in making a bid.
Takeover by Commerzbank
On August 31 2008,
CommerzbankCommerzbank AG is the second-largest bank in Germany, after Deutsche Bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main.Commerzbank is mainly active in commercial banking, retail banking and mortgaging. It suffered reversals in investment banking and shut its Commerzbank Securities investment banking unit...
announced that it would acquire Dresdner Bank for EUR 9.8 billion. The deal entitled Allianz to receive about EUR 8.8 billion for the sale of 100% of Dresdner Bank AG and about EUR 975 million into a trust solution for specific ABS assets of Dresdner Bank.
The transaction, which would occur in two steps, is expected to be completed by the end of 2009. Under the deal, Commerzbank would pay about EUR 1.6 billion in cash and remainder in shares.
Hitler's Germany
Dresdner Bank was known as the bank of choice for
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
's SS.
The bank took part early on in the Third Reich's policy of confiscating Jewish property and wealth. The bank helped to finance concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
The bank was closely involved in occupation of Europe, "essentially acting as the bank of the SS in Poland".
Putin's Russia
Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
, where former
KGBThe KGB was the national security agency of the USSR. From 1954 until 1991, the Committee for State Security was the Communist state's premier secret police, internal security, and espionage organization, whose coat of arms—the Shield and the Sword—illustrate a national military hierarchy...
agent
Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich Putin was the second President of Russia and is the current Prime Minister of Russia as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus...
was in charge of foreign economic relations. Dresdner Bank appointed
Matthias WarnigMatthias Warnig is a former member of the Stasi and currently the Managing Director of the Nord Stream AG, a company for construction and operation of the Nord Stream submarine gas pipeline from Russia to Germany....
, a former
StasiThe Ministry for State Security, The Ministry for State Security, The Ministry for State Security, (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, commonly known as the Stasi [ˈʃtazi] (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official secret police of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered in...
agent and Vladimir Putin's former KGB contact, to negotiate with Putin. The office was opened in 1991. Warnig became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian subsidiary.
The bank has had a lucrative business relationship with
GazpromOAO Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Gazprom was created in 1989 when the Ministry of Gas Industry of the Soviet Union transformed itself into a corporation, keeping all its assets intact...
and the state oil company
RosneftOAO Rosneft Oil Company is an integrated petroleum company owned by the Russian Government. Rosneft is headquartered in Moscow’s Balchug district near the Kremlin, across the Moskva river...
. The bank was also involved in the controversial forced sale of
YukosYukos Oil Company was a petroleum company in Russia which, until recently, was controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a number of prominent Russian businessmen. Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to prison. Yukos headquarters was located in Moscow...
assets.
External links