Publication database

Extensive industry consolidation is taking place in Europe in many industries. The aviation industry, for example, has seen mergers between Air France and KLM, as well as Lufthansa and Swiss. The German banking industry just recently started to consolidate with the takeover of Dresdner Bank by Commerzbank and the partial takeover of Postbank by Deutsche Bank. But how about consolidation in one of the biggest growth-markets worldwide - China? A recent survey by ESMT has looked at the differences between Europe and China when it comes to consolidation.

Following the merger of Commerzbank with Dresdner Bank and the subsequent takeover of a 30% share in Deutsche Postbank by Deutsche Bank the German banking market seems to enter the long awaited consolidation. The Business Brief analyses the consequences of these transactions and shows that they are merely first steps. Only the reform of the public sector banking system - with the dominant savings banks and the Landesbanken - will provide Germany's banks with a chance to remain market driving generalists in a consolidating European market.

Translating IPCC climate models into CO2 emissions per head results in 2030 emission targets of 5 percent of today's emission levels for the US and 10 percent for Europe. In an energy environment where externalities like CO2 are priced and where fossil fuels are becoming scarce and more expensive, only a major transformation of the 20th century energy and mobility infrastructure will be able to cope with these climate and fossil fuel scarcity challenges. With increasing energy prices, energy efficiency and decentralized energy generation will be key ingredients for this energy paradigm shift. Focusing on this paradigm shift, the business brief as a thought experiment intends to: - Identify implications for the value chain, namely the creation of new value-chain segments; - Indicate potential shifts in market size and margin of the respective value-chain segments; - Derive implications for players involved, namely the emergence of a new competitive landscape. The business brief addresses all energy players involved, especially incumbents who face the challenge to balance the tasks of securing and optimizing traditional business while at the same time taking part in new disruptive innovations.

Summary of results from the 2007 Consolidation Impact Survey. The survey covers four industries that are most affected from consolidation trends in Germany: Aviation, Utilities, Telecoms and Banking.

This study analyses the relationship between entry regulation and infrastructure investment in the telecommunication sector. The empirical analysis we conduct is based on a comprehensive data set covering 180 fixed-line and mobile operators in 25 European countries over 10 years and employs a newly created indicator measuring regulatory intensity in the European countries. We carefully treat the endogeneity problem of regulation by applying instrumental variables and find that tough entry regulation (e.g. unbundling) discourages infrastructure investment by entrants but has no effect on incumbents in fixed-line telecommunications. We do not find significant impact of entry regulation on investment in mobile telephony.

While markets internationalize and at the same time consolidate, companies have to ask themselves if they can develop to one of the market leaders in this broader international market. To give guidance to this question, the business brief introduces the concept of the consolidation index as a framework for developing and validating strategies in this regard and discusses the results of the consolidation index for the European banking and utilities industry.

Der Abstieg erfolgte vergleichsweise unspektakulär, aber nachhaltig: Noch zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre war die Deutsche Bank gemessen an der Marktkapitalisierung die größte europäische Bank und gehörte zu den zehn größten Banken weltweit. Seither haben sich die Relationen grundlegend verschoben: In allen großen europäischen Ländern gibt es inzwischen jeweils mindestens zwei Banken, die eine größere Marktkapitalisierung aufweisen, als die Deutsche Bank. Damit stellt sich die Frage, welche Rückschlüsse für die, neben den in Deutschland dominierenden Volksbanken und Sparkassen, börsennotierten privaten Banken zu ziehen sind.