Finance
Commerzbank Stake Sale Drives New Wedge in Scholz Coalition
- Government probing its own handling of decision to sell 4.5%
- UniCredit is now the German bank’s second-biggest investor
Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.
Photographer: Alex Kraus/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The German government’s decision to offload about a quarter of its holding in Commerzbank AG is driving another wedge into Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious ruling coalition.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the business-friendly Free Democrats on Thursday defended his ministry’s sale last week of a 4.5% stake to Italy’s UniCredit SpA, arguing it was the right time to begin the process of exiting the German lender and it’s not the government’s role to create national champions.