Commerzbank plans job cuts, new targets to keep UniCredit away, sources say.

Germany’s Commerzbank is preparing staff cuts and revamped financial targets in its efforts to fend off tie-up advances by Italy’s UniCredit, multiple people with direct knowledge of the plans told Reuters.

Four of them said, however, the measures would be more evolutionary than radical, while some conceded that a takeover of the German bank, which saw its stock price jump by 50% since UniCredit first signalled interest, may be hard to stop.

The battle for Commerzbank, pitting one of Italy’s biggest banks against the German establishment, has become a test case of the country’s ability to fend off foreign suitors and prevent its financial centre from losing one of its few remaining big commercial banks.

The job cuts will amount to several thousand people, two of the people said, while a third said they would number between 3,000 and 4,000 people out of a workforce of some 42,000 employees.

Source: FINANCE.YAHOO