The board of directors of the Apotheker- und Ärztebank is already dangerously thin, but after the unprecedented departure of three board members, the exodus from top management is apparently not over yet.

According to information from the FAZ, Alexander Müller, who has been on the board of directors for major customers and markets since September 2021, is about to jump.

The spokeswoman for Apobank declined to comment on Boxing Day.

She denied information that Müller had asked for the immediate termination of his contract, which ran until September 2024.

In fact, according to information from the FAZ, it is unclear whether the supervisory board of Apobank will let Müller out of a contract.

According to reports, a decision on this should be made in January.

Hanno Mussler

Editor in Business.

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With 2,200 employees and a balance sheet total of 67 billion euros, Apobank is the largest German bank in the legal form of a cooperative.

It is one of around 20 German banks that are supervised by the ECB's European banking supervisory authority because of their size and risks.

In 2022, three board members announced their retirement from Apobank.

In mid-September, private customer boss Jenny Friese and risk director Eckhard Lüdering abruptly left after the FAZ had previously reported on a “quarrel” with the CEO Matthias Schellenberg, who had been in office since March.

Lüdering had even reported Schellenberg to the supervisory board for a conflict of interest, from which Schellenberg was freed with an expert opinion.

In November, it was announced that Holger Wessling, Chief Financial Officer and IT Director, would take over as Chairman of the Board of Sparkasse Rhein-Nahe on June 1, 2023.

Unlike Friese and Lüdering, however, Wessling will remain with Apobank until the completion of the annual financial statements and the balance sheet press conference in March 2023.

The banking supervisory authority is also said to have pushed for this.

Currently only three board members

Finally, the supervisory board, chaired by the dentist and official Karl-Georg Podhammer, succeeded in hiring two new board members, Thomas Runge from HSBC and Sylvia Wilhelm from the VW finance division.

But both will only start on January 1, 2023. The Apobank board currently consists of only three members: CEO Matthias Schellenberg, Alexander Müller, who is apparently about to jump, and Holger Wessling, whose departure is certain.

This management circle is actually too small for the financial supervisory authority for a bank of this size.

In December, Apobank therefore appointed the 55-year-old Heiko Drews to the divisional director for branch sales.

He should relieve Schellenberg, who took over the private customer department from Friese.

After positions at UBS, Merck Finck and MM Warburg, Schellenberg joined Apobank in March 2022 to lead the institute, which had been shaken by an IT breakdown, into calmer waters.

However, the many departures from the board of directors in his short aegis speak a different language.

After the Supervisory Board placed operational responsibility for private customers in the hands of Schellenberg, Schellenberg can and must now show what he can do professionally.