The boards of managing directors of and on April 12 signed therequired documents for their merger to form a joint cooperative central institution.

The chairmen of the supervisory boards of the two banksrecorded their support for the merger plan in a corresponding declaration, thebanks said.

The structure of the transaction is a "merger by way ofacquisition" in which the assets of WGZ Bank will be transferred to DZBank, with shareholders of WGZ Bank receiving DZ Bank shares calculated inaccordance with the enterprise valuations of the two banks.

Accountancy firm KPMG set the value ratio at 74.4% for DZBank and 25.6% for WGZ Bank, leading to an agreed exchange ratio of 67.6 DZBank shares, with an imputed nominal value of €2.60 per share, for 1 WGZ Bankshare, with an imputed nominal value of €100.

Decision-making annual general meetings of the two banks arescheduled to take place in June, and the merged entity is expected to beginoperations Aug. 1. Germany's antitrust regulator has already the merger.