A Bavarian botch-up
Our third merger brief is a reminder that, when couples mate in a hurry for the wrong reasons, things can go wrong—as two Bavarian banks proved when they formed HypoVereinsbank
LAST May, Germany's second-biggest bank, HypoVereinsbank (HVB), announced a surge in profits in the first quarter. The bank “goes from strength to strength,” declared its boss, Albrecht Schmidt, proudly. Last week Mr Schmidt was looking even prouder, as HVB snapped up Bank Austria, that country's biggest bank.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “A Bavarian botch-up”
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