May we get rid of two or three sentences on the background of the acquisition of the Frankfurt MHB bank by the Berlin-based startup Raisin (“World Savings”)? Yes? We may? Great!
Well, that was a nice story, as it was read yesterday in various media, so that Raisin initially worried 100 million euros of investors and then buys a bank of the money. Only: she does not vote right. Because the deal was according to our information for many, many months more or less fixed, so long before the monstrous Funding round.
Proof? Can not we deliver. But we have a funny proof: Take a look at the Linkedin profile of the “Head of Banking” of Raisin. For almost a year now, he has also been operating as a “Head of Strategy” for MHB Bank. Such a constellation has not existed since Austro-Hungarian K.u.K.
Then we were once in the Federal Gazette to see what the MHB Bank actually has for a track record. The most recent publicly available annual report is that of 2016. And if you read that through, it does not make you feel like you’re dealing with the white-label powerbank out there:
Revenues totaled just 4.8 million euros
Of these, just over a third was “income from loss absorption” (this loss transfer was made by the sole shareholder, a Delaware-based fund owned by US investor Lone Star)
The net loss amounted to a good 11 million euros
The small amount of commissions that existed at all (namely 3 million euros) was essentially “determined by the activities of Lone Star and its companies”
This calls for an explanation: It seems as if MHB-Bank was less a whitelabel bank than a special purpose vehicle of Lone Star until one or two years ago. There has been the customer Raisin since 2013. But not much else. All of the fintechs, who yesterday were said to be based on the MHB bank (eg Exporo or Creditshelf), apparently did not dock with the Frankfurt Institute until 2017/2018.
In fact, the matter is probably this: in the past 12 to 24 months, the MHB Bank has gradually de-lonestarisiert. And it looks like that happened at least in the past three-quarters of a year already under a k.u.k.-esken aegis from Raisin.
What all this means for the purchase price, which the Berlin Fintech has transferred to Lone Star? Well, it will not have been too high, we would guess.
Also published on Medium.