COMMERZBANK AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT

At the beginning of December, Commerzbank published an offer under which investors in
hybrid equity instruments (trust preferred securities) issued by companies of the Commerzbank
Group were able to sell these instruments to the Bank for cash. When the offer concluded
on December 13, 2011, the Bank had received offers to buy instruments with a nominal value
totalling €1.3bn. The Bank spent a total of approx. €643m buying the hybrid equity instruments.
The transaction had a one-off positive effect on the Bank’s consolidated earnings and
increased Core Tier I capital accordingly.
Tighter requirements from the European Banking Authority
Although Commerzbank passed the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) published bank
stress test as expected in mid-July, the capital requirements were subsequently tightened later
in the year.
The euro rescue package agreed at the EU summit on October 26, 2011 also contained a
number of specific demands relating to the banks. Alongside the debt write-down on Greek
sovereign debt, the capital requirements for systemically relevant banks were adjusted by the
EBA. Consequently, the EBA requires compliance as of June 30, 2012 with a Core Tier I ratio
of 9%, including the market valuation of sovereign debt from the European Economic Area.
Under these rules, the additional capital requirement calculated by the EBA for Commerzbank
stands at €5.3bn. Directly after publication of the EBA’s requirements, action was taken in
November 2011 to speed up the reduction in risk-weighted assets and to manage the capital
structure. An extensive package of measures was agreed in the middle of January 2012 to
reach the EBA target ratio. Details on these can be found in the “Report on events after the
reporting period” on page 39 and in the “Outlook and opportunities report” on page 45.
Commerzbank successfully concluded bank-wide project to integrate
Dresdner Bank
Commerzbank successfully concluded the bank-wide project to integrate Dresdner Bank in
fewer than 1,000 days. All of the important milestones in the biggest integration project in
German banking history were achieved as planned. In some areas, the Bank actually progressed
farther than expected, despite the challenging global economic situation. Over
Easter 2011, the Bank completed the last major step in the bank-wide integration project
when it migrated the customer and product data. Since then, all customers have been able to
access the same products and services in all branches. Commerzbank had already modified
its organisational structure in 2009 and 2010. Following Dresdner Bank’s integration, Commerzbank
expects annual synergies of some €2.4bn after 2013. Commerzbank is still on plan
concerning the staff reduction programme.
In the course of the downstream project work, by end-2011 the Dresdner Bank systems
were archived and shut down at segment level and 123 pairs of branches were already
merged. The scheduled merger of around 400 branches should be completed by the end of
2012.
Sale of Dresdner Bank Brasil S. A. Banco Múltiplo completed
As announced a year ago, Commerzbank completed the sale of its Brazilian subsidiary
Dresdner Bank Brasil S.A. Banco Múltiplo to Canada’s Scotiabank at the end of September.
The transaction was approved by the supervisory authorities. Based in São Paulo, Dresdner
Bank S.A. Banco Múltiplo focused on investment banking activities. As at the end of 2010, it
had total assets of around €237m and 37 employees. The Commerzbank representative office
in São Paulo, which primarily supports the Bank’s corporate customers with trade finance
services and payment products, will not be affected by the transaction. Similarly unaf-
Financial Statements and Management Report 2011 33