What Role do Identity-based Convictions play in Company Takeovers?

[Sep 2025] The transfer and takeover of companies are playing an increasingly important role in Germany.  The Bonn-based Institute for SME Research (IfM) expects that, in the current reporting period of 2022–2026, 190,000 family-owned companies in Germany need to be taken over.

There is also movement in classic company takeovers. Already since fall 2024, Unicredit Bank has held a minor stake in Commerzbank. Berlusconi Holding recently improved the financial terms of its existing offer for a majority takeover of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group. And most recently, the holding company of the MediaMarkt-Saturn Group has received a takeover offer from a Chinese investor. At the beginning of August 2024, none of these takeover projects were ready to be signed. Apparently, the relevant players do currently not have the conviction that the advantages of a takeover would outweigh the disadvantages for them.

This essentially psychological perspective is worth a closer look, which will be illustrated using the current takeover attempt by Unicredit Bank as an example. The key players here are not only the Unicredit board as the prospective buyer and the Commerzbank board. Other important parties involved are the Federal Republic of Germany as the current second-largest Commerzbank shareholder (represented by the federal government), the other owners (represented by the supervisory board), and Commerzbank employees (represented by the general works council). Still at the beginning of August 2025, the latter four players classify Unicredit's takeover attempt as “unfriendly” and avoid giving the impression that there are direct takeover talks with the prospective buyer.

In such an unclear situation, knowledge of Haslam's Social Identity Theory can be helpful in identifying options for action. According to this theory, actors primarily see themselves as members of their respective groups (We from the successful B-Bank, We from the combative works council, etc.) and add their individual identity to this group-related identity (I myself as a professional corporate customer manager, I myself as a contact person for social fairness, etc.). The positive self-esteem associated with individual identity is automatically transferred to one's own group identity. One's own employer thus becomes an ingroup, i.e., a group to which one feels one belongs.

However, where there is an ingroup, there is also (at least) one outgroup that is perceived as a threat to one's own identity because of its intentions — no matter whether they are actual or assumed, clear or ambiguous. For ingroup members, the point is to highlight as many positive differences as possible between themselves and the outgroup (e.g. We are simply closer to the customer) or to attribute negative differences to the outgroup (e.g. They still can't land the big fish). In effect, a social comparison takes place that serves exclusively to enhance the value of one's own group – if necessary, by devaluing the other group. The longer such identity-based convictions persist, the more they hinder intended cooperation.

When initiating a corporate takeover, the prospective buyer is usually the key player. If buyer's own intentions (and their consequences!) are discussed in direct talks with the main shareholders of the company concerned, then, if there is sufficient interest on their part, impulses can be expected that may lead to meaningful preliminary talks with the management of the company concerned.

However, a prospective buyer could also play the “other card,” i.e.

• deliberately using uncertainty as a negotiating tool,

• preferring to speak publicly (“about”) rather than directly (“with”),

• using hints that could also be interpreted as threats, or

• presenting the implementation of its own intentions as the only option, thereby tending to disqualify the intentions and actions of the other players.

In this case, the other players would increasingly get the impression that manipulation is being attempted. In the worst case, this can lead them to the conviction that manipulative behavior forms part of buyer's identity. This then potentially paves the way for hostile action and creates an additional obstacle to the cooperation that is actually being sought.