When Hilmar Kopper took over the management of Deutsche Bank, he did not allow himself a breather.
His predecessor Alfred Herrhausen was murdered by terrorists on November 30, 1989.
Just two days after the bomb attack, Kopper, who was quickly appointed the new board spokesman, sealed the takeover of the London investment bank Morgan Grenfell, which he had initiated together with Herrhausen.
The acquisition was intended to permanently redirect the history of Deutsche Bank.
Kopper thus laid the foundation for the institute's rise to become the largest bank on the international capital markets.
He himself became one of the defining figures of the German economy in the nineties and beyond.
Tim Kanning
Editor in business.
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One thing was clear to Kopper: The leading bank in the country could only accompany the strong exporting German companies all over the world if they also operate a powerful securities and foreign exchange department and get involved in advising companies on mergers and acquisitions. The balance sheet total, the profits and, last but not least, the salaries of the top bankers grew to unprecedented heights within a few years. But the entry into Anglo-Saxon investment banking with its completely different business culture soon created an imbalance in Deutsche Bank: The dashing and extremely self-confident bankers in London, New York and later also Singapore quickly earned salaries in the millions with businesses that barely did at the Frankfurt headquarters someone understood more.In the city, entire teams of traders were lured away for expensive money from other banks, including Edson Mitchell and his henchman Anshu Jain, who gradually rose to become the secret masters of the bank.
How the Peanuts comparison came about
After the eloquent banker Alfred Herrhausen, who was also valued by the general public, the hands-on, tall Hilmar Kopper became the first Deutsche Bank boss to whom the English term banker tended to apply.
This also resulted in an alienation of Deutsche Bank from its home market, which manifested itself when Kopper dismissed open tradesmen's bill in the tens of millions as “peanuts” in the course of the fraud scandal surrounding the “building lion” Jürgen Schneider.
In 1994, the term even made it to "Unword of the Year".
The fact that today's bank managers only dare to go public with a host of PR managers and lawyers who smooth down any halfway pithy statement is also due to this passage.
Kopper himself couldn't understand the excitement.
As he later said, the sentence was about tradesman's bills that the bank had paid - so it was obviously about "peanuts" compared to the size of Deutsche Bank.
He demonstrated self-irony: for the FAZ's “Kluge Köpfe” campaign, he later had himself photographed while reading the newspaper on a trailer full of peanuts.
He traveled to a peanut farm in Georgia, USA, specifically for the recordings.
"Role model for our employees"
On Thursday Kopper died after a short serious illness with his family, as the bank announced on Friday.
The chairman of the supervisory board, Paul Achleitner, paid tribute to Kopper as one of the key board spokesmen in the post-war history of Deutsche Bank.
"In his day, he steered the company with leadership and foresight - and with a clear understanding of how much globalization would change the banking business," the bank quoted Achleitner as saying.
The CEO Christian Sewing described Kopper as a role model for the bank's employees.
"He strategically shaped our bank and paved the way for us as a global house bank to be able to support our customers all over the world today."