The Frankfurt Bethmann Bank, founded in 1748 and with roots from the purchased institute Delbrück & Co dating back to 1712, loses its legal independence.

If all goes according to plan, Bethmann will be incorporated into Dutch parent company ABN Amro in the fourth quarter of 2022, return her German banking license and then operate as part of ABN Amro's branch.

According to the press spokeswoman, ABN applied three years ago to become a full member of the private deposit protection fund of the Association of German Banks in order to continue protecting customer deposits.

This is important, because in the future only around 100,000 euros per customer will be legally protected from Holland, similar to Germany.

Due to the early application for full membership in the BdB, however, several million euros per depositor are secured in the unlikely event of bank insolvency, so ABN Amro avoids a cliff that is quite relevant for rich Bethmann customers.

The integration of Bethmann seems to have been prepared well in advance.

Hanno Mussler

Editor in Business.

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Archibald Preuschat

Editor in Business

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In a press release, Bethmann justified the restructuring with cost and efficiency advantages that amounted to a high single-digit million amount per year and should be invested “in growth”.

The lending business is also to be stepped up in order to use the liquidity that is becoming available.

They are looking for new employees, and a new location is also conceivable, said the spokeswoman for the FAZ. With 500 employees and 43 billion euros in customer assets under management, Bethmann sees itself as number three behind Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank in private banking;

but rivals like Berenberg, Oddo-BHF and UBS are ahead of Bethmann by some criteria.

The loss of independence in the ABN-Amro Group, to which Bethmann has belonged since 2004, has been gradual for years: Under the then new boss Hans Hanegraaf, the bank left its headquarters "Bethmann Hof" in 2018 and moved to the "Marieninsel" opposite the moved to Deutsche Bank, where Goldman Sachs is also based.

There, the then 560 employees moved in with those from ABN Amro's corporate customer business for the first time.

However, the two-brand strategy is being adhered to: ABN Amro for corporate customer business, Bethmann for high-end private customer business.

Now the cooperation is to be deepened.

"In our care philosophy,

However, the reclassification makes sense above all because the administrative costs are considered too high.

While Bethmann has been profitable in recent years, with results ranging from 10 million euros in 2021 to 15 million euros in 2020, the bank has remained far from ABN Amro's return targets.

In normal years, it spends a good 90 cents to earn 100 cents.