Commerzbank’s Rally Meets Resistance as UniCredit’s Hostile Offer Falls Short of Analyst Targets
26.05.2026 - 19:21:56 | boerse-global.de
Shares in Germany’s second-largest lender are hovering around €37 after touching a six?month high, but a Relative Strength Index of 79.6 signals the stock is technically overbought. Profit-taking has trimmed the price by roughly one per cent from Monday’s peak, leaving the twelve?month gain at a handsome 39 per cent. The retreat does little to undermine the broader trend: the equity trades more than ten per cent above its 200?day moving average.
Barclays remains firmly in the bull camp, reiterating its “Overweight” rating and a target of €42 — implying further upside of 13 per cent from current levels. That stands in sharp contrast to the terms of UniCredit’s hostile takeover bid, which values each Commerzbank share at just €34.56 based on the Italian bank’s own stock price on 15 May. With the independent analyst consensus sitting at €41.50, the gap between what the market thinks Commerzbank is worth and what UniCredit is offering has widened to more than seven euros.
UniCredit published its offer document on 5 May, proposing 0.485 new UniCredit shares for every Commerzbank share. The consideration meets only the statutory minimum requirement — no premium, no sweetener. The acceptance period is expected to run until 3 July 2026, though UniCredit itself has indicated the deal will not close until 2027 because of the regulatory approvals still needed. Whether the Italian lender improves its terms or walks away remains unresolved.
Commerzbank’s board is betting that a string of strong financial results and ambitious long-term targets will persuade shareholders to reject the bid. The first quarter of 2026 delivered an operating profit of €1.36bn and net income of €913m, both up roughly ten per cent year on year. The return on equity reached 12.7 per cent, and management raised the full?year net profit guidance to at least €3.4bn, up from the previous forecast of more than €3.2bn.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Commerzbank?
Under the “Momentum 2030” plan, the bank targets a net profit of €5.9bn and a return on equity of 21 per cent by the end of the decade, with total revenues of €16.8bn. To get there, it will invest roughly €600m in artificial intelligence between 2026 and 2030 — while cutting another 3,000 full?time jobs on top of the 3,900 reductions announced in February 2025.
For this year, shareholders are already being rewarded handsomely. Commerzbank returned a total of €2.7bn to investors in fiscal 2025, including €1.5bn in completed buybacks. The dividend of €1.10 per share was approved by 99.88 per cent of votes at the annual general meeting in Wiesbaden, and a renewed buyback mandate of up to ten per cent of share capital received 96.25 per cent support. The bank has pledged to distribute its entire net profit as long as its core capital ratio stays above 13.5 per cent.
The AGM also delivered a clear vote of confidence in management. Executive board discharges passed with between 99.58 and 99.64 per cent approval, and the 2025 remuneration report was backed by 91.28 per cent of shareholders. Behind the scenes, however, governance issues surfaced. Former CEO Manfred Knof had his variable pay for 2024 cut by 30 per cent after the board found he had failed to report a meeting with UniCredit chief Andrea Orcel at Knof’s home in September 2024.
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In a separate move, Commerzbank is trying a marketing gimmick to attract retail deposits: a five per cent interest rate tied to the performance of the German national football team at the upcoming World Cup. The risk to the bank is limited, but the initiative underscores the broader competition for savings in an environment where the European Central Bank is still deliberating further rate moves.
For now, the 52?week high of €37.75 remains within striking distance. Whether the stock can break through that resistance will depend on the interplay between UniCredit’s strategic patience, the bank’s own delivery on its ambitious plan, and the direction of interest rates. With the bid deadline still more than a year away, Commerzbank has time to let its numbers do the talking.
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