FRANKFURT, July 23 (Reuters) – German retail company and lender Degussa Bank has been put up for sale, said people close to the issue, when their owners faced large payments to other lenders they had after their involvement in fraudulent trade schemes.
Sellside PwC’s advisers plan to send an information package about Degussa Bank to prospective buyers next month, with the aim that the deal will be closed before the end of the year, they said.
Degussa Bank can be worth around 400 million euros ($ 463 million), one of the people said, adding that the core banking activities could be worth around 200 million or roughly the book value.
Other activities such as bank real estate and insurance brokerage businesses can be worth around the same amount, the person said.
Private equity companies, banks, asset managers and insurance brokers are expected to show interest in the bank, said the men, some of whom estimate total valuations of close to 200 million euros.
Degussa Bank is majority owned by Christian Olearius and Max Warburg, who bought it from the Dutch lender ING in 2006 and who also owns the MM Warburg bank based in Hamburg.
The owners of Degussa Bank and PwC declined to comment.
German judges in March ordered MM Warburg to pay 176 million euros for his involvement in the trial of the biggest post-German fraud fraud involving multi-billion euro trade to get false tax returns. The bank appealed the decision.
Olearius and Warburg have said in the past that they would financially support MM Warburg if the bank had to make payments related to its participation in the so-called cum-ex transaction.
Degussa Bank, which was originally part of the Degussa precious metals group, has outlets in the locations of many German companies, which make themselves work banks. Separately, he owns a residential property unit, Industria Wohnen, which among others sells closed property investment funds, and also has an insurance broker Prinas Montan.
In 2019, Degussa Bank reported a profit before tax of 26 million euros. ($ 1 = 0.8632 euros) (Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Susan Fenton)
