vdp President Gero Bergmann confirmed in office

Berlin, 16 May 2024

Members’ Meeting elects Henrietta Six, Thorsten Schönenberger and Ljubisa Tesić as new members of the vdp Board of Directors 

Gero Bergmann, Member of the Board of Management of BayernLB, will remain the vdp’s President for a further two years. He was re-elected at the 19th Members’ Meeting of the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks (vdp) in Frankfurt am Main yesterday. Bergmann has held this position since June 2023. He joined the vdp Board of Directors in 2021.

“I am very pleased to have received the confidence of the member banks,” Bergmann declared. He went on to say that managing the ongoing downswing on the property market and the excessive regulation are the current challenges that he, together with the vdp Board of Directors, will tackle during the next period of office. “Before even more measures are adopted that place a burden on banks’ capital, a review of the consistency and target orientation of the many measures already in place is more than overdue. We are calling for an immediate moratorium on regulation.” Moreover, Bergmann pledged that the Association will remain committed to ensuring that the vdp‘s core product, the Pfandbrief, can continue to hold its own against other forms of refinancing.

The regular election of the vdp’s Board of Directors for a new two-year office term was also held at this year’s Members’ Meeting. Ten members were re-elected. Due to their recent and imminent retirement respectively, Dr Jürgen Kullnigg, Member of the Managing Board of UniCredit Bank GmbH, and Christian Bonnen, Member of the Board of Managing Directors of Kreissparkasse Köln, did not stand again for election. Nor Dr Christian Ricken, Member of the Board of Managing Directors of LBBW, stand for re-election in view of his forthcoming move to Aareal Bank.

Henrietta Six, Member of the Management Board of Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf, Thorsten Schönenberger, Member of the Board of Managing Directors of LBBW, and Ljubisa Tesić, Member of the Managing Board of UniCredit Bank GmbH, were elected as new members of the Board of Directors.

The vdp Board of Directors now has the following members:

• Gero Bergmann (President)
  BayernLB

• Sabine Barthauer
  DZ HYP

• Dr Matthias Danne
  DekaBank

• Marc Oliver Heß
  Aareal Bank

• Dr Holger Horn
  MünchenerHyp

• Hans-Dieter Kemler
  Helaba

• Sascha Klaus
  BerlinHyp

• Thomas Köntgen
  Deutsche Pfandbriefbank

• Dr Bettina Orlopp
  Commerzbank

• Matthias Schellenberg
  ApoBank

• Thorsten Schönenberger
  LBBW

• Henrietta Six
  Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf

• Ljubisa Tesić
  UniCredit Bank GmbH
• Jens Tolckmitt
  vdp, CEO
  (Member of the Board of Directors qua office)