Commerzbank: Bundling Eastern Europe Operations In Seperate Hldg<@SM>Co

Edited Press Release

FRANKFURT -(Dow Jones)- Germany's Commerzbank AG is bundling its EasternEuropean operations into a separate holding company and announced theappointment of Andre Carls as its head.

Mariusz Grendowicz is to be the new Chief Executive of BRE Bank S.A.

Following the successful conclusion of negotiations on the acquisition of amajority stake in Ukrainian Bank Forum and on the granting of officialauthorizations, Commerzbank is now reorganizing its operations in Central and Eastern Europe.

The operations of all subsidiaries and regional branches in Central and Eastern Europe have until now been included in the Mittelstandsbank segment, butin the future they will be combined in a separate holding company which willhave its own management and reporting system. This new arrangement reflects therapidly growing importance of Central and Eastern Europe for the whole group,and will also improve the transparency of the reporting procedures.

Last year, the region accounted for 11% of the Commerzbank Group's operatingprofit, and this is set to rise to between 15% and 20% over the medium term.

Andre Carls, the current CEO of comdirect bank, is assuming overallresponsibility for the new segment. The Chief Risk Officer of the holdingcompany will be Michael Schmid, who has been responsible for the Bank's globalcredit risk management. Carls shall also take over from Jerzy Jozkowiak as ChiefFinancial Officer of the Polish subsidiary BRE Bank, while assuming the deputyCEO role together with Wieslaw Thor.

The new CEO of BRE Bank is to be Mariusz C. Grendowicz who was the deputy CEOof the Polish Bank BPH until the end of 2006.

BRE Bank's new Board of Managing Directors shall be completed by ChristianRhino, who will join from the Frankfurt head office to be its Chief OperatingOfficer. His function was previously carried out by Rainer Ottenstein who willnow be co-managing Commerzbank's Prague branch. Bernd Loewen, Jaroslaw Mastalerzand Janusz Wojtas shall continue as Board Members in their current positions.All proposals are subject to the necessary Supervisory Board decisions andrequisite regulatory approvals.

In the course of the reorganization of operations in Eastern Europe BRE Bank'scurrent CEO, Slawomir Lachowski, has requested that his expiring contract shouldnot be prolonged. Lachowski has been on the Board of Managing Directors since2000. He is departing by mutual agreement.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires 03-04-08 0338ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.