Reading about his efforts to merge with four other Landesbanken – WestLB, BayernLB, Nord/LB and SachsenLB – and his failed bid for Landesbank Berlin (LBB), he is portrayed as an over-ambitious and hyperactive bank CEO. Berlin’s government sold LBB to German Sparkassen (state-owned savings banks) for €4.75bn. Mr Jaschinski’s actions have ruffled the feathers of some Landesbanken owners who are not accustomed to such forthrightness. For example, instead of politely declining Mr Jaschinski’s overture, Hartmut Möllring, finance minister of Lower Saxony, which owns 42% of Nord/LB, remarked irritably in June: “We don’t want to merge with LBBW and there will be no further discussion regardless of what Mr Jaschinski says.”
Yet when interviewed by The Banker, Mr Jaschinski, who has a PhD in history, cut an entirely different figure. He is softly spoken and mild mannered, and he is visionary about the future of German finance and what role his bank should play.
