Werner Schmidt (Manager)

Werner Schmidt (born July 14, 1943 in Sindelfingen ) is a German manager .

education and study

After completing his training as a banker at Kreissparkasse Böblingen , Schmidt attended the Württembergische Sparkassenakademie and studied at the teaching institute of the Deutsche Sparkassenakademie in Bonn. He completed his studies in 1969 with a degree in business administration.

Professional background

In 1971 Schmidt was initially a deputy and from 1974 a full member of the board of the Landesbank Stuttgart . In 1986 he was appointed deputy chairman of the board of this institute. After the merger to form SüdwestLB in 1989, Schmidt joined the board as chairman, an office he held until 1999. From 1999 to 2000 he was chairman of the board of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg .

Schmidt had been Chairman of the Board of Management of BayernLB since 2001 . At the beginning of 2008, Schmidt came under great pressure due to massive speculation errors in the subprime market , which caused his bank to lose billions. After going through a not appointed coordinated press release on the financial position of Landesbank CSU -Minister Erwin Huber was exposed, he announced on 19 February 2008 at his resignation. At the beginning of March 2008 he officially handed over his office to Michael Kemmer .

Until February 29, 2008, Schmidt was a member of the Board of Directors of DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale .

Suspicions of breach of trust, insider trading and bribery

At the beginning of 2010 it was reported that the public prosecutor's office was accusing Schmidt of being involved in insider trading in the purchase of Hypo Group Alpe Adria . In May 2011, Schmidt and seven other former BayernLB board members were charged with embezzlement in the same context.

The district court did not allow the indictment in large parts. The public prosecutor appealed against it. The Munich Higher Regional Court granted the appeal; the charge was admitted for breach of trust in the amount of 625 million euros and for the allegation of bribery of the former Carinthian governor Jörg Haider in connection with the acquisition of Hypo Group Alpe Adria. Only the former board member Dieter Burgmer was excluded from the indictment. He was not sufficiently suspect, said the higher regional court.

In January 2014, the process began before the Munich Regional Court. The trial ended on October 27, 2014 with Schmidt being sentenced to one year and six months' imprisonment for bribery. The sentence has been suspended. The conviction came about in the context of an agreement, which also included the payment of a sum of 100,000 euros and the termination of the trial against Schmidt on charges of infidelity. The former members of the BayernLB board of directors who were co-defendants remained unpunished against payment of additional money.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Schmidt in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)
2. ↑ Credit crisis - BayernLB boss has to go Spiegel Online , February 19, 2008
3. ^ Insider suspicion in the Hypo Deal of BayernLB ( memento of March 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Financial Times Deutschland , January 3, 2010
4. ↑ Suspicion of insider trading ( memento of the original from December 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 1, 2010 
5. ↑ Public prosecutor's office indicts former board members of BayernLB, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 3, 2011, p. 11
6. ↑ sueddeutsche.de October 24, 2013: Large trial against former BayernLB boss
7. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine, February 11, 2014, p. 14.
8. ↑ sueddeutsche.de October 27, 2014: suspended sentence for ex-Landesbank boss Schmidt