There has been a Bavarian state building society for 93 years. In its 94th year of business, the institute, which was founded in 1929, will most likely lose its independence.
Munich (dpa / lby) – The two southern German state building societies want to realize their planned merger at high speed by the beginning of next year. “We have the order from our carriers that we should go into the merger on January 1, 2023,” said Erwin Bumberger, Chairman of LBS Bayern, on Monday in Munich. However, this could also mean that the merger agreement will be final by August next year at the latest. “Then you can put the merger into effect retrospectively as of January 1, 2023.”
The Bavarian LBS and the LBS Südwest want to form the second largest building society in Germany together, both houses would then have around 2.8 million customers. The larger of the two partners is LBS Südwest. “Ultimately, we want to gain market share in the medium term,” said Bumberger.
With seven million customers in Germany, the market leader is Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall. This belongs to the competing cooperative banks, which are essentially the Volks- und Raiffeiseninstitute.
Unlike the cooperative banks, the public savings banks have not yet set up a nationwide large building society based on the example of Schwäbisch Hall. However, the trend in the LBS Group is also towards larger institutes. The formerly independent institutions from Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate only merged in 2016 to form the LBS Südwest.
The conditions for the merger are very good, said Bumberger. “We are experiencing a home savings boom that we haven’t seen in many, many years.” The rapid rise in interest rates in the first half of the year brought LBS Bayern growth in new business in the first five months that had not been seen in decades. From the beginning of January to the end of May, home savings rose by almost 80 percent to almost 3.8 billion euros. The year 2021, on the other hand, went badly, as did other building societies. New home savings business fell by a quarter to 4.8 billion euros.
According to Bumberger, however, the rise in interest rates will enable the building societies to play out their old advantage again – namely the significantly lower interest rates compared to real estate loans without a previous building society contract. Bumberger therefore expects good business in the second half of the year.
