GERMANY TEMPERING SUCCESS WITH CAUTION
Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank (DG Bank), the central bank for a vast credit co-operative system that has outperformed all other banking groups over the last quarter century, is heading for another bumper year after posting its best ever results in 1985. But in one crucial business -- the consortial placement of securities -- the bank sees itself hobbled by discriminatory quotas that favour its competitors.
DG Bank chairman, Helmut Guthardt, who announced in late May that his bank's global operating earnings had surged ahead by at least one-third in the first five months of 1986 after rising by one-fifth in all of 1985, also seized the occasion to vent his frustration at the West German Finance Ministry over the quota issue.
Causus belli for Guthardt was the fact that the credit co-operative sector was assigned a placement quota of just 5% in the public offering of 40% of the stock of the giant state-owned VIAG chemical, energy and smelting conglomerate, that began trading June 11 at a starting price of DM165 per nominal DM50 share. Lead-management of the consortial flotation included Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and Bayerische Vereinsbank, which were able to offer their customers princely shares of the available DM226 million while the remaining 30 banks in the "privatization" consortium settled for crumbs.