Comdirect Reportedly Acquires Societe Generale’s German Brokerage Arm

Photo: Bloomberg

Commerzbank’s online banking unit, Comdirect bank AG, said Friday it has reached an agreement to acquire the entire shareholding in the German online broker Onvista AG, a subsidiary of the Boursorama S.A. which is wholly owned by France’s second-biggest bank Societe Generale Group.

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Comdirect bank AG said the acquisition, which must be approved by the German bank’s supervisory board and by regulators, will give the bank a strong boost in the development of its brokerage business in Europe.

It would enable the group, which is 81 percent-owned by Commerzbank, to nearly double the number of clients in this segment in Germany, as OnVista Bank GmbH holds about 2.1 billion euros in assets under management and has around 90 thousand trading-oriented customers.

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“With OnVista Bank, we are strengthening our position as a market leader in the brokerage business in Germany in terms of trade figures, and are adhering to our strategy of being the first choice in saving, investing and trading in securities,” CEO of comdirect bank AG said in statement.

Onvista AG also operates www.onvista.de one of the most popular financial portals in Germany which offers financial information and trading services as a one-stop shop.

The planned acquisition of Onvista AG, which also includes the finance portal, is fully in line with Comdirect bank AG’s business development plan, with Germany is a key market for its expansion in Western Europe.

The French lender was weighing a sale of its stake in the German broker because it was undertaking a major reorganization that includes halving some of its activities to focus on its core and profitable operations. It added in a statement that the sale would have a limited positive impact on the group’s financial ratios and that it remained strongly committed to the German market through its corporate and investment banking, specialized lending and consumer finance activities.