22.08.2024, 15:08
Frankfurt/Main. Plaintiff’s lawyer Klaus Nieding has welcomed the settlement with Deutsche Bank in the dispute over the Postbank takeover. “We recommend that our clients accept the offer,” said the lawyer, whose law firm represents the largest group of plaintiffs, to the “Handelsblatt” (Friday edition). “Over 95 percent have already accepted it.” Nieding praised the “very constructive discussions” with the Deutsche Bank board of directors.
On Wednesday evening it was announced that the bank had reached a settlement with 80 plaintiffs, who represent 60 percent of the claims volume. The case concerned the question of whether Deutsche Bank had offered Postbank shareholders a sufficiently high takeover price for their shares. The bank had paid 25 euros, the plaintiffs demanded 57.25 euros per share plus interest. The bank had offered the plaintiffs a premium of 31 euros per share.
Deutsche Bank expects that the settlements reached will, on average, consume approximately 45 percent of the reserves allocated to the claims of these parties. The excess reserves for these plaintiffs could therefore be released.
The bank expects this to have a positive effect on its pre-tax result in the third quarter of around 430 million euros. If the bank concludes settlement agreements with other plaintiffs, this could have further positive effects on the entire provisions set up for the complex of proceedings, it said.
In 2010, the plaintiffs accepted Deutsche Bank’s takeover offer for Postbank for 25 euros per share, but then sued the institute and demanded more, with 57.25 euros being the price on offer. The argument: Deutsche Bank should have made a mandatory offer two years earlier after it had bought almost 30 percent of Postbank shares from Deutsche Post – for 57.25 euros per share.
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