Manuela Better's time as a partner in the Hamburg private bank MMWarburg & Co is coming to an end after just one year.

According to information from the FAZ, the Supervisory Board of Warburg-Bank is currently negotiating a termination agreement with Better.

A successor for Better, known above all as a resolute reorganizer and liquidator of Hypo Real Estate, which was nationalized during the financial crisis, has reportedly already been found in Markus Bolder.

Hanno Mussler

Editor in Business.

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Bolder, former board member of the failed Landesbank West LB and its processing bank Portigon, and most recently one of the managing directors of Oetker-Bank Lampe, bought by Hauck & Aufhäuser, is believed to be the leading partner in the management of Warburg-Bank in the future, probably as primus inter pares.

However, that sounds more pompous than it possibly is.

The two majority shareholders of the Warburg Bank, which was deeply involved in the cum-ex scandal, Christian Olearius and Max Warburg, had to leave the supervisory board at the urging of the banking supervisory authority and let their voting rights rest.

However, the shareholders are still involved in the background, and the wear and tear of managers is high.

Many exits

With Matthias Schellenberg (now CEO of the Apotheker- und Ärztebank), Peter Rentrop-Schmid, Patrick Tessmann and Joachim Olearius, four men have left the management board in the past twelve months.

It currently consists only of Better and Stephan Schrameier, a former board member of the German subsidiary of British bank Standard Chartered, who signed in February 2022.

After Better's departure and Bolder's arrival, Warburg's management would still be thinly staffed.

One can only speculate about the reasons for Better's imminent departure.

One thing is clear: she has lost her most important mentor in Bernd Thiemann, the former CEO of Nord LB and DG Bank.

Thiemann brought Better to Warburg in June 2021.

However, Thiemann left Warburg as Chairman of the Supervisory Board at the end of 2021.

The two know each other from the scandal bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE).

Thiemann had had to find a new CEO for the emergency nationalized real estate bank there in 2010, also as chairman of the supervisory board after the abrupt departure of Axel Wieandt.

"Old Broom"

At the time, Thiemann praised Better from Munich, who had previously worked for HRE and Bayerische Vereinsbank for most of her professional life, with uncharming words: "New brooms sweep well, but old brooms know exactly where the dirt is." Better fulfilled the expectations: It consistently reduced the legacy and, above all, created resilient connections to the banking supervisory authority.

Since then, the petite woman has been considered one of the heavyweights among risk managers in Germany.

At Warburg, too, Better had to heal the destroyed connections to the banking supervisory authority.

In the audit report for 2021, the bank was certified as having serious deficiencies.

However, Better is also considered to be not very diplomatic.

After the federal government, as the owner of HRE, decided not to sell the Irish subsidiary Depfa Bank, as favored by Better, but to wind up the portfolios, she left the bank in 2014 after a merry dispute.

In mid-2015 she started as Chief Risk Officer of the savings bank fund company Deka.

There, too, it was said that she had not always acted in a particularly cooperative manner.

Her contract, which expired in May 2020, was not renewed.

Her commitment as a partner at Warburg-Bank then meant that Better, now 61 years old, continued her career.

According to reports, Better was quickly isolated in the Warburg Bank.

She is not a customer woman, she is accused behind closed doors.

You prevent too many deals.

The final straw, however, is said to have been that Better put the Warburg Group's mortgage bank up for sale and sent sales documents to potential buyers.

It will soon become clear how big the argument about her departure will be.