France's Credit Mutuel to buy German bank IPO candidate OLB

By Tom Sims

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - French banking group Credit Mutuel Alliance Federale is buying German lender Oldenburgische Landesbank (OLB), a surprise move after the northern German bank for years flirted with listing on the stock exchange.

The planned sale was announced by OLB and the French bank's German subsidiary, Targo Deutschland, on Thursday. Neither bank disclosed financial terms.

Last month, the CEO of OLB, Stefan Barth, said the current market conditions to launch an initial public offering were the strongest in years, heightening expectations of a listing soon.

OLB said in a statement announcing the deal that the combination with Targo would make it the 10th largest banking group in Germany by assets.

"This acquisition is a further fundamental strategic step by Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale in the implementation of its strategic plan," Targo said.

OLB's shareholders include Apollo Global Management, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Grovepoint Investment Management.

Only a handful of banks have gone public on Germany's main exchange in Frankfurt over the last 25 years, data from the exchange operator Deutsche Boerse shows.

One of the last bank IPOs was the 2015 listing of the property lender Deutsche Pfandbriefbank.

In a sign of a wobbly IPO market, German generic drugmaker Stada this week postponed a planned IPO in Frankfurt because of market volatility.

(Reporting by Sabine Wollrab and Tom Sims; Editing by Ludwig Burger)