Deals
The Little-Known Banker Shaking Up Germany's Beleaguered Lenders
- Helmut Schleweis aims to create the country’s No. 2 bank
- Sparkassen veteran has ‘merger experience like no other’
The creation of a Super Sparkasse could help lift Germany’s slumping financial industry.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Helmut Schleweis lacks the name recognition of Paul Achleitner or Christian Sewing, but he could end up making an even bigger mark than the Deutsche Bank AG executives on Europe’s largest banking industry.
The 64-year-old head of the German savings banks association DSGV is the unassuming architect of an ambitious plan that could create Germany’s No. 2 bank by combining several Landesbanken -- regional lenders that channel money for local public savings banks, or Sparkassen, to larger borrowers. It would be the culmination of a decade-long push to overhaul the sector.