Financial investors want to shake German Landesbanken

In the context of NordLB's search for investors, the German savings banks are considering a merger of their several billion Landesbanken. According to the financial community, a merger of Landesbanken Helaba, NordLB, LBBW and fund service provider Deka and real estate financier Berlin Hyp is also mentioned.

However, as the German press has said, these are very long-term projects. These have always existed. Remember Dietrich Hoppenstedt, former boss of the German Association of Savings Banks and Giro. He had mentioned the need for a "national champion" through a Landesbanks merger. However, this idea is still far away, sources said. Above all, there are important political obstacles because the different countries have to agree. In addition, there are regional interests, as in Baden-Württemberg, where LBBW is based and would probably not abandon its Stuttgart center.

A spokesman for the Association of Savings Banks DSGV confirmed the talks on the future of the sector, but told the German Economic News: "The procedure to attract financial investors initiated by the sponsors of the NordLB is a reason for the DSGV, the possible options and the measures to be taken for Sparkbaden-Finanzgruppe to prepare and consult its members.The considerations are still at the beginning.There are also no preliminary decisions, nor results possible in the current state. "

The chairman of the savings bank, Helmut Schleweis, has repeatedly called for a reorganization of the Sparkbadenlag because of low interest rates and increasing regulatory burden. "Our structures are not sustainable," he complained, for example, in March at the annual press conference of the German Sparkbaden- and Giroverband (DSGV). Only on Wednesday, an offer from Commerzbank on the troubled NordLB caused a stir in the savings bank.

Currently, only Helaba has shown interest in NordLB. Even if it does not act as a "scout" for the savings banks and reviews NordLB's books for its own benefit, the sources badume that Helaba could share its findings with other Landesbanks.

The main concern of the savings banks is the possibility that aggressive financial investors will take control of a minority stake of about 20% in NordLB, and then use their own strategy to move the whole sector. The position of the savings banks is therefore that nothing stands in the way of a total takeover by a private sector, but that the entry as a "active investor" feared is rejected. In this role, financial investors who now want to join NordLB have shown that they want to use all means to increase shareholder value. The badociated cultural change would dramatically upset German public banks.
,
The trigger for the deliberations is the critical situation of NordLB, which had recorded a record loss of just under two billion euros in 2017 due to lazy lending to ships and is waiting for it. that this year is in the red. Carriers only want to sell a minority stake in the bank. According to financial circles, Commerzbank, Helaba, hedge fund Christofferson, Robb & Company and financial investors Apollo, Cerberus and Advent are still in the running. The second round offers are expected by the end of November.

Independent financial expert Achim Dübel told the German press: "Cooperative banks have shown that a merger can be useful.

Regional mergers would probably have been preferable to Landesbanks. There has always been the model of vertical integration at the regional level, such as LBBW. But because of the financial crisis and the departure of HSH and WestLB, the train is gone. In that sense, it will probably eventually lead to the national solution. "