German bank LBBW completes purchase of Berlin Hyp

Germany-based Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, or LBBW, closed its acquisition of commercial real estate lender Berlin Hyp AG, furthering the consolidation of the public banking sector in the country.

LBBW said June 30 that Berlin Hyp will operate as an independent unit. The economic and legal transfer to LBBW took effect July 1.

The deal, announced in January, will boost LBBW's commercial real estate financing business. The financing volume totaled about €27 billion at LBBW at 2021-end and roughly €26 billion at Berlin Hyp.

The transaction also adds to the consolidation within Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe GmbH & Co. KG, the umbrella organization for the German public banking sector. "We want to further strengthen and deepen our close cooperation with the savings banks," Berlin Hyp CEO Sascha Klaus said in a statement.

In 2021, LBBW struck a deal to partially merge its savings bank services operations with fellow federal state bank Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale, or Helaba. It also previously took over the hedging business of peer Bayerische Landesbank.