
Logo of the Dresdner Bank

The 1978 "
Silver Tower" houses part of the head office of the Dresdner bank.

The 2003 finished "Gallileo Tower" is part of the head office of Dresdner Bank.
'Dresdner Bank
AG' is one of
Germany's largest banking corporations and is based in
Frankfurt.
History
19th century
Dresdner Bank was established on
12 November 1872 through the conversion of financial institution Michael Kaskel. Dresdner Bank founding consortium consisted of Allgemeine Deutsche Creditanstalt, Leipzig, Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Deutsche Vereinsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Deutsche Effecten- und Wechselbank, Frankfurt am Main, and Anglo-Deutsche Bank, Hamburg with an initial capital of 8 million Talers (24 million Marks) and 30 employees in Wildruffer Strasse in
Dresden. In 1870s, Dresdner Bank acquired smaller regional institutes and several banks. The new branch in Berlin quickly exceeded the office in Dresden; therefore, the registered office moved to Berlin in 1884 leaving the place of jurisdiction in Dresden until 1950. After few new acquisitions, (even the acquisition of founder of Anglo-Deutsche Bank) opened the first international branch in London in 1895. By 1900, Dresdner bank had the largest German branch network. During the
First World War, the London branch was forced to close; however, the branch network expanded in overall.
Early 20th century
After the banking crisis in 1931 the
German Reich owned 66% and Deutsche Golddiskontbank owned 22% of Dresdner Bank shares. Its deputy director was
Dr Schacht, Minister of Economy under
Nazism. The Bank was reprivatised in 1937. As a result of
World War II 80% of the Bank building were destroyed; therefore, the Bank lost 162 offices in 56 locations. As a result of the monetary reform and the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in 1948 the banking business normalized.
Post World War II era
Dresdner Bank expanded its network with acquisition and opening new offices not only in Europe but also in the United States, Singapore, Canada, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and China. Dresdner Bank was the first to open its own office in former
eastern Germany in Dresden in
2 January 1990. After the acquisition of
Kleinwort Benson in 1995 to form its investment-banking arm
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Dresdner Bank takes over the American investment bank
Wasserstein Perella Group Inc., New York in 2000. This arm was renamed Dresdner Kleinwort in September of 2006, dropping the Wasserstein name.
Allianz era
Since 2002, Dresdner Bank has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance corporation
Allianz. Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the Investment Bank arm of Dresdner recently, in July of 2006 dropped Wasserstein from their name and went through a re-organization of corporate bank, capital markets and investment bank to form Dresdner Kleinwort. The arm made up of Capital Markets and Investment Banking.
External links
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Dresdner Bank corporate website
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History - Timeline
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Allianz Group corporate website
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DresdnerKleinwort
Data
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Yahoo! - Dresdner Bank AG Company Profile