Noerr advises LVM on sale of Augsburger Aktienbank’s securities business to ebase

24.07.2020

With a team headed by Berlin-based partner Hans Radau, Noerr has advised LVM Versicherung a.G. on the reorganising of its wholly-owned subsidiary Augsburger Aktienbank (AAB), Germany’s oldest direct bank. LVM is one of Germany’s leading primary insurers and had taken over AAB from Allianz Dresdner Asset Management in 2002.

Subject to the required regulatory approvals, AAB’s securities business will be transferred to European Bank for Financial Services GmbH (ebase), a subsidiary of London-based fintech specialist FNZ. The purchase agreement was signed on 30 June 2020. Closing of the transaction which involves transferring employees, transferring contracts with cooperation partners and migrating around 180,000 client accounts with over €17bn under management will take place in mid-2021. The company’s Augsburg office will be maintained. LVM’s product portfolio will continue to include banking products even after the securities business has been transferred. To this end, the LVM Group and ebase have entered into a long-term cooperation agreement as part of the transaction.

A cross-office and interdisciplinary Noerr team advised the LVM Group comprehensively on all legal and tax aspects of this complex transaction, with the advice focusing on corporate, financial and insurance supervisory, IT, data protection, employment, distribution, antitrust, distribution, general terms and condition, as well as tax law. Noerr’s Berlin-based associated partner Dominik Rompza acted as co-lead.

Noerr regularly advises on transactions in the financial sector. Teams led by Hans Radau have previously advised clients including the Rocket Internet’s fintech companies Lendico, Zencap and Spotcap on their incorporation as well as the legal structuring and international roll-out of their business models, and have in the past two years advised the Lendico Group on its sale to ING and the shareholders (including LVM) of the German bank Aachener Bausparkasse AG on its takeover Wüstenrot Bausparkasse AG. Noerr’s Hamburg-based banking team headed by Volker Land advised comdirect bank AG in 2019 on the sale of ebase to FNZ Group. Noerr will continue to assist LVM with the further reorganisation of AAB.

Advisors to LVM Landwirtschaftlicher Versicherungsverein Münster a.G.: Noerr LLP

Team lead: Dr Hans Radau (Corporate/M&A and Tax) und Dominik Rompza (Corporate/M&A, both Berlin)

Banking supervisory

Professor Kai-Michael Hingst (Hamburg), Dr Jens H. Kunz (Frankfurt), Dr Karl-Alexander Neumann (Hamburg), Associate: Arndt Alexander Schmidt (Hamburg)

Insurance supervisory

Dr Thomas Heitzer, Associate: Dr Lisa Haseloff (both Düsseldorf)

Corporate/M&A

Anka Ehrich, Dr Tibor Fedke, Professor Christian Pleister (all Berlin), Dr Eckhart Schleifenbaum, Silvia Sparfeld (both Munich), Dr Laurenz Tholen (Berlin), Associates: Christian Burmeister, Franz Hahn, Aramis Josef, Jin-Sa John Jun, Laura Moosleitner, Dr Nicholas R. Palenker, Marc Philip Priesmeyer, Friedrich von Ketteler (all Berlin), Dr Manuel Weiß (Munich), Dr Andreas Wöller (London)

Employment

Dr Stefan Schwab (Berlin), Dr Patrick Mückl (Düsseldorf), Associates: Dr Christoph Ickenroth, Dr Mario Merget (both Berlin)

Data protection

Pascal Schumacher, Associates: Dr Lennart Sydow, Henrike von dem Berge (all Berlin)

Dr Torsten Kraul, Associate: Elena Lehrke (both Berlin)

Distribution

Dr Tom Billing (Berlin), Dr Albin Ströbl (Frankfurt)

E-commerce

Dr Tobias Bosch (Berlin)

Capital markets

Dr Dominik Kloka, Dr Laurenz Wieneke (both, Frankfurt), Associate: Anne-Kristin Schiller (New York)

Financing