WARSAW – Nov. 9, 2018 – Deutsche Bank AG has completed the sale and demerger of Deutsche Bank Polska S.A.’s local Private & Commercial Banking business to Santander Bank Polska S.A. (formerly Bank Zachodni WBK). The transaction includes DB Securities S.A., but excludes the foreign currency retail mortgage portfolio. The signing of the transaction was announced in December 2017, and completion was conditional on receipt of all required regulatory approvals as well as operational readiness of the local businesses for the demerger.
The transaction price has been set at approximately PLN 1.29 billion.
Greenberg Traurig advised Deutsche Bank AG and Deutsche Bank Polska S.A. on structuring, negotiating and execution of the transaction, which was completed as a demerger of the transferred business from Deutsche Bank Polska directly to Santander Bank Polska. The transaction was subject to the approvals of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, other regulatory approvals and other conditions.
The innovative demerger structure was pioneered by Greenberg Traurig in Poland and has since been established as a framework for such transactions. This is the second demerger of a Polish bank completed in 2018, and Greenberg Traurig was involved in both transactions.
The transaction is also unique due to the concept of direct migration of the transferred business to the IT systems of Santander Bank Polska simultaneously with the completion of the transaction. This means that the operational merger of the transferred business happens immediately after the completion of the transaction and not several months afterwards like in other recent banking sector transactions.
The legal work on the transaction was supervised by Senior Partner Lejb Fogelman and led by Partner Stephen Horvath, Partner Łukasz Pawlak and Partner Michał Fereniec.
The Greenberg Traurig team also included: Partners Marek Kozaczuk, Andrzej Wysokiński, Robert Gago, Aleksander Janiszewski and Paweł Piotrowski; Local Partners Michał Bobrzyński, Anna Hałas-Krawczyk, and Tomasz Kacymirow; of Counsel prof. Adam Opalski; Senior Associates Maciej Kacymirow, Radosław Pawluk, Ewa Tabor-Maciejewska, along with Associates Maciej Pietrzak from the London Office, Magdalena Medyńska, Mateusz Śliżewski, Maja Gawrysiuk, Martyna Komorniczak, Natalia Wołkowycka and Marta Kownacka.
Greenberg Traurig LLP: Greenberg Traurig, LLP is an international, multi-practice law firm with approximately 2000 attorneys serving clients from 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Greenberg Traurig Grzesiak sp.k. was named the 2018 Most Innovative Law Firm of the Year Award for Poland by International Financial Law Review (IFLR) and the 2017 Law Firm of the Year in Poland by Chambers and Partners. The Warsaw office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP provides legal services to clients in Central Europe and beyond and consists of more than 100 lawyers. Team members are regularly recognized as leaders in numerous practice areas. Chambers Global, Chambers Europe, IFLR1000 and EMEA Legal 500 consistently rank them among the top tiers the areas of Corporate/M&A, Capital Markets, Real Estate, Private Equity, Tax, Banking and Finance, Project Finance, Energy, Dispute Resolution and TMT. For additional information, please visit www.gtlaw.com.