Frankfurt. Raiffeisenbank Plankstetten is not calming down even after the board of directors and supervisory board were dismissed by the financial regulator Bafin. At the extraordinary general meeting, the majority of shareholders voted for the bank to further distance itself from the cooperative idea.
So the owners decided on Friday evening that the bank would see itself as a stock corporation according to its statutes, but no longer as a “cooperative” stock corporation. The typical cooperative principle that every owner, regardless of how many shares he has subscribed, has one vote in the general meeting will also be deleted. Instead, there should be one vote per share.
The voting result was almost unanimous, said a spokesman for the bank. The financial institution has 300 shareholders. 220 were present at the general meeting or were represented there.
The changes to the statutes have no effect on membership in the BVR industry association. According to the bank, it also remains in the BVR security facility, through which cooperative banks save each other in an emergency. According to the BVR, the institute can even continue to use the name “Raiffeisenbank”.
Nevertheless, the voting result is an indication that the majority of shareholders continue to support the dismissed board members. Some shareholders had criticized Bafin's actions in the run-up to the general meeting.
The case of the small Raiffeisenbank Plankstetten is extremely unusual and, given the public dispute, is increasingly becoming a problem for the cooperative financial group. The ex-board members are taking legal action against the supervision. This is even more true because the financial institution is completely breaking away from the cooperative principle. The bank has been organized as a stock corporation instead of a cooperative since 2010.
The case is causing dissatisfaction in the cooperative financial group. The sector is already facing a series of scandals and economic problems. In the past two and a half years, a total of ten Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks have had to be rescued by the industry's support fund or are about to do so.
The dispute between the financial regulator and the Raiffeisenbank Plankstetten as well as the former board members has been going on for several years. At the beginning of July, Bafin dismissed the two long-standing board members, Elmar Weiß and Walter Frank, and appointed a special representative to manage the bank. Weiß and Frank had previously refused to take part in discussions as part of a special audit several times and had not submitted documents on time. Odo Steinmann is the special representative for the board.
A month later, the financial regulator also dismissed the supervisory board and appointed Sandra Michelfelder as a special representative. According to Bafin, sending special representatives is “one of the strongest instruments of financial supervision”. The Banking Act stipulates that special representatives can take over the tasks and powers of the bodies of an institution if they are no longer classified as reliable or do not have “the necessary expertise”.
After the dismissal of the board members, the supervisory board at the time invited people to an extraordinary general meeting on September 11th. The original agenda included, among other things, a resolution that former board member Weiß, who is also a shareholder in the bank, would be given the chairmanship of the meeting.
In addition, it was proposed as a resolution that Weiss and Frank should be given “unrestricted confidence”. “The general meeting recognizes the unprecedented performance with which the board members have made our bank the best bank in Germany,” it said under agenda item 4. The general meeting should also determine that the contracts of the dismissed board members continue to exist.
However, the bank had withdrawn a number of agenda items and pointed out that they “could not be decided by the general meeting for statutory or legal reasons”.
Bafin considers the two former board members to be “unreliable and professionally unsuitable,” as can be seen from a decision by the Frankfurt Administrative Court. On Friday, the court rejected Weiß and Frank's urgent applications against the ban on their activities and the request for dismissal. The ex-board members won’t accept that either. “We will file a complaint on behalf of our clients,” said their lawyer, Marcus Geschwandtner, partner at the law firm Dr. Fandrich Rechtsanwälte, the Handelsblatt.
The dismissed board members had already failed in court two weeks earlier. The administrative court decided at the time that warnings from Bafin from 2024 remain valid. The former board members believe that the authority's interventions were not justified.
The bank also announced on Friday that the BVR is currently examining, among other things, the loan book as part of its own special audit. The financial institution is under stricter observation by the BVR security institution.
Steinmann said at the beginning of July that he had found “an economically solid, solvent and efficient bank”. According to the annual report for 2025, the operating result before valuation was comparatively good at a good two percent in relation to the average balance sheet total, which measures a bank's operating profitability. According to financial circles, there are doubts as to whether the bank handled overdrafts appropriately.
There is another special feature at Raiffeisenbank Plankstetten: The bank does not have its annual financial statements audited by one of the cooperative auditing associations, but by another small auditing and consulting firm. The high dividend payment is also unusual. The financial institution will distribute 1.8 million euros for the 2025 financial year.
The fact that the leadership has to be replaced again is likely to cause unrest. Steinmann is giving up his position as special representative. The bank explained that he had asked Bafin to release him from his duties for health reasons. The supervisory authority has started a search for a successor.
