According to Handelsblatt research, the first binding offers should be made this week. According to insiders, it is questionable whether Helaba will take part.
IKB lettering: preference for a foreign buyer? Photo: dpa
Frankfurt. The planned sale of the Mittelstandsbank IKB is entering the decisive phase. The financial investor Lone Star, which owns the Düsseldorf institute, is expecting several binding offers for IKB starting this week, various people familiar with the matter told Handelsblatt.
Strategic bidders such as the major French bank Crédit Agricole and the Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) have also expressed interest. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the Frankfurt institute wants to offer a good 600 million euros for IKB. This would correspond to approximately 0.6 times IKB's book value. The book value is based on the regulatory equity, which at the Düsseldorf institute amounted to 958 million euros at the end of June.
However, it is questionable whether Helaba would be successful with such an offer. Other interested parties have recently signaled to Lone Star that they want to offer a price that is closer to IKB's book value than Helaba's rumored 600 million euros, a person close to Lone Star told Handelsblatt.
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Another argument in favor of a foreign buyer would be that IKB would then be able to maintain more independence and would probably have to cut fewer jobs, the insider explained. Since Helaba is already strongly represented in the corporate customer business, it would probably have greater synergies with IKB and, as a result, a greater need for restructuring.
Related: In Portugal, Lone Star recently sold a majority stake in Novo Banco to a foreign buyer – the French banking group BPCE. Overall, Novo Banco was valued at 6.7 billion euros.
Entry in the middle of the financial crisis
Lone Star, Helaba, Crédit Agricole and IKB declined to comment on the sales process. The Düsseldorf financial institution made headlines in Germany in 2007 as the first German victim of the global financial crisis. The institute had overexploited by investing in US junk mortgages and was rescued by the German taxpayer with around ten billion euros.
A year later, Lone Star took over the majority of IKB and later increased its stake to 100 percent. Typically, financial investors only stay involved in companies for five to seven years and then sell them again. However, several attempts to sell IKB have failed in recent years.
According to insiders, whether the sale will be successful this time will depend primarily on whether one of the interested parties offers a price that is satisfactory for Lone Star. Financial institutions that are listed in the Euro Stoxx Banks index are currently trading on the stock exchange at an average of 1.46 times their book value.
Helaba: An IKB takeover would not really advance the Landesbank strategically. Photo: dpa
Since IKB is smaller and less profitable than many large banks, experts only expect a company valuation of 0.6 to 0.9 times its book value when it is sold. In the first half of the year, IKB made a profit of 36 million euros, which corresponds to a return on equity of 10.8 percent.
IKB refinances just over half of its loan book, which recently totaled 8.5 billion euros, through promotional loans from KfW and other promotional loans. Their purchase would therefore not really advance the significantly larger Helaba strategically, said people familiar with the matter. However, if the Frankfurt-based company wins the bid at the targeted purchase price, they could strengthen their equity.
The failed takeovers of Helaba
Helaba has tried several times to make larger acquisitions in recent years, but without success. A takeover of the real estate financier Aareal Bank failed in autumn 2025, mainly due to different price expectations. Here too, according to financial circles, the Landesbank had offered a price well below the book value.
In 2022, Helaba lost out in the competition for Berlin Hyp. Instead, the real estate financier went to the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), which, according to financial circles, paid 1.3 billion euros for it. Discussions about a merger with Deka and a takeover of NordLB had previously been unsuccessful.
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Helaba boss Thomas Groß, who announced his departure in October 2027 on Friday, does not want to give up and continues to look for acquisitions. With an equity ratio of 16.7 percent, Helaba is sufficiently capitalized “to make larger acquisitions,” he said in March.
However, acquisitions must fit your own strategy, be culturally integrated quickly and have an appropriate price, explained Groß. “If all three components fit, then we are still very, very open to pursuing exactly this acquisition path.”
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