May 31, 2007
Landesbank Berlin acquires majority stake of 75% minus one share of the share capital of NetBank AG.
It was recently announced that Landesbank Berlin AG (LBB) has acquired a majority stake of 75% minus one share of the share capital of NetBank AG from, inter alia, six Sparda banks, represented by Willkie, through an auction process. The remaining existing shareholders of NetBank AG continue to jointly hold the remaining participation in Netbank AG. The transaction is conditioned upon, among other things, the consent of the German Federal Cartel Office. NetBank AG has been conducting business in Germany since 1999 as the first all-internet bank with a full banking license. It currently serves 80,000 customers and has a balance sheet capital of over €500 million. LBB is the market leader on the German national credit card market with approximately 1.5 million credit cards, and is the largest issuer of Visa and MasterCard credit cards. The deal was handled by Andreas Hautkappe, Mario Schmidt, Patrick Meiisel, Bettina Bokeloh, Rolf Hünermann, Ingo Bednarz, and Markus Käpplinger.
