The online bank N26 is being transformed into a public limited company. The company announced this on Thursday. Until now, N26, one of the most valuable European start-ups, has been organized as a limited liability company (GmbH). With the company name as AG, the conditions would be created to be able to carry out the future conversion to a European company (Societas Europaea, SE), N26 explained the planned conversion.
“The conversion to an AG reflects N26’s past growth and position as the leading digital bank in Europe.” At the same time, the new structure of the Internet direct bank founded by Austrians offers more flexibility to further the business strategy.
With the change in legal form, N26 is likely to fuel speculation about a possible IPO. A few weeks ago, co-founder Valentin Stalf referred to the bad environment, which currently makes it difficult to go public. The manager now told the “world” that the break-even point would be reached in about two years. In general, it is only a good time to go public when profitability is within reach. “Given the difficult stock market climate, however, it will certainly take a few more years before we finally go public.”
N26 gets a board of directors
With the conversion to an AG, N26 will also have a supervisory board. The committee is led by fintech investor Marcus Mosen, formerly head of payment service provider Concardis, among others. His deputy is Jörg Gerbig, Chief Operating Officer of the delivery service Just Eat Takeaway and founder of Lieferando. Other members of the Supervisory Board are lawyer Barbara Roth of Deutsche Börse, Julian Deutz, CFO of Axel Springer and lawyer Robert Kilian of Humboldt University in Berlin.
According to experts, the composition of the supervisory board also indicates that N26 intends to get along better with the regulators. A good year ago, the bank accepted a demand from financial regulator Bafin, limiting growth to 50,000 new customers per month. In addition, the Bafin imposed a fine of 4.25 million euros because N26 had submitted suspected money laundering reports too late.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
