The then Commerzbank boss Martin Zielke was almost lethargic when he was kicked out of the Dax in September 2018.
His successor Manfred Knof and the current CFO Bettina Orlopp tick differently.
They boldly seized the opportunity and, a good two weeks before the scheduled publication of the business figures for 2022, announced in advance the earnings figure "Ebitda", which Deutsche Börse, as the index operator, had declared relevant.
When the stock exchange now creates the ranking list according to market values at the end of January, on the basis of which it decides in February on the place in the Dax that will be vacated by Linde, the bank will suddenly stand on it - probably ahead of Rheinmetall, the first Dax candidate to date.
Because Commerzbank currently has a slightly higher stock market value than the armaments group and now meets the basic criterion “positive Ebitda two years in a row”.
Your fourth quarter of 2022 must have gone well with a gross profit of around 500 million euros thanks to high interest income.
This would allow Commerzbank to shed its "Wirecard" trauma: after all, the insolvent scandalous company, to which Commerzbank lost a lot of money as a lender, had pushed them out of the Dax at the time.