Oldenburgische Landesbank AG
General | General InformationGeneral Information
| Company name | Oldenburgische Landesbank AG |
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| Company website | www.olb.de | |
| Number of employees | 500 - 4.999 | |
| Reporting year | 2021 | |
| Indicator set | GRI SRS | |
| Directly affected by the disclosure of non-financial and diversity information | Yes and check compliance statement with CSR reporting obligation | |
| Reporting on EU taxonomy | subject to the reporting obligation and reporting according to EU taxonomy | |
| Contact |
Head of Sustainability
Holger Sandker Stau 15/17 26122 Oldenburg Germany +49 (0)441 221 1568 +49 (0)441 221 2433 holger.sandker@olb.de; sustainability@olb.de |
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Describe your business model (including type of company, products / services)
Oldenburgische Landesbank AG (OLB) is a modern, customer-oriented financial institution anchored in Northern Germany that serves its customers throughout Germany under the two brands OLB Bank and Bankhaus Neelmeyer. OLB pursues a multi-channel approach in its business with retail and business customers, combining regional branch networks with a national digital presence. In corporate banking, the Bank has a regional business with small and medium-sized companies and a larger-volume corporate segment, in which OLB operates throughout Germany and selectively in Austria and Switzerland as well. In addition, OLB selectively exploits growth opportunities in areas of specialized lending with an attractive risk-return profile. The Bank has many long-standing customer relationships, a diversified loan portfolio, and a robust balance sheet structure with a stable funding base, and capitalization of more than EUR 1.1 billion in core capital.
In the 2021 reporting year, OLB continued to focus on the three strategic business segments of Private Clients, Corporate & SME (small and medium enterprises) Banking, and Specialized Lending.
All of OLB's shares are held by shareholders affiliated with the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, Apollo Global Management, and Grovepoint Investment Management. The shareholders are independent of each other, and each holds a stake of less than 40 percent (%), so none of them controls OLB under stock law. The Bank is the sole shareholder in three companies that do not conduct banking business. For one of these companies, the chain of ownership was shortened by a merger of the intermediate holding company into OLB AG in 2021. The Bank continues to use compartments of Weser Funding S.A. to improve its ability to raise liquidity by securitizing parts of its loan portfolio. Compartment No.1, which was terminated as planned, was replaced by the newly issued Compartment No.3 in fiscal year 2021. The Group pension plan managed at Allianz Pensionsfonds AG, to which a large part of the pension obligations and the cover funds allocated to meet the obligations were transferred in 2019, is to be measured as another subsidiary special-purpose entity under commercial law.
OLB returned to the capital market in March 2021 with the successful placement of a sub-benchmark-sized mortgage covered bond with a volume of EUR 350 million (m). Investors in the exchange-traded mortgage covered bond included sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, banks and building societies from across Europe. The Bank is therefore capital market-oriented as defined in Section 264d of the German Commercial Code (HGB) as of December 31, 2021.
- In the Private Clients strategic business segment, OLB offers competent advisory and support services through its centrally managed branch network and through the Oldenburg Advisory Center, based on personal and trusting contact. At the same time, customers can also access needs-based products and modern services directly through online and mobile sales channels. OLB thus combines a strong nationwide presence in its core business region of Weser-Ems with the services of a direct bank operating throughout Germany, with partner sales offices and brokerage business. The Bank's offerings focus on checking accounts and credit cards, online banking and mobile banking (via the OLB Banking app), installment loans, private construction financing, and private investments. It also offers insurance brokerage and assistance with private real estate purchases and sales. In wealth management, the bank operates under the Bankhaus Neelmeyer brand, which is particularly well established in the Bremen area. The bank rounds off its wealth management offering with exclusive financial and retirement planning, real estate management, generation management and foundation management.
- In the Corporate & SME strategic business segment, OLB develops customized solutions in working capital financing, investment financing, forfaiting, export financing/document business, and foreign payment transactions. It also offers active interest rate, currency and liquidity management, support for business start-ups, and financing for renewable energy projects. The range of services extends beyond OLB's core business area in the Weser-Ems region, and is available throughout Germany, with branches in Hamburg, Frankfurt and other major cities. Since 2020, the range of services has been expanded to include football finance.
- The strategic business area Specialized Lending focuses on providing individual advice on classic and complex financing solutions in the three areas:
- Acquisition Finance, which includes in particular the arrangement and structuring of debt financing to accompany acquisitions of medium-sized companies, primarily in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,
- Commercial Real Estate, which includes commercial real estate financing for builders and developers as well as assisting investors with real estate projects in Germany and the Netherlands, and
- Shipping, with selective, conservative new business in freight rate-dependent ocean-going vessels in Germany and neighboring countries.
The bank reorganized its business activities at the beginning of fiscal year 2022 in terms of target customers, products and services, and processes and settlement for purposes of management by business area. The first main pillar is the “systembank” business with retail customers and regional business with small and medium-sized corporate customers. Here, the bank focuses on a multi-channel approach in combination with regional branch networks and a nationwide digital presence. The basis for the services offered are lean end-to-end processes characterized by a high level of automation and digitization. Customers are to benefit from high availability of services with fast processing times and at competitive prices. The systems banking business has been assigned to the new "Private & Business Customers" strategic business area since January 1, 2022.
The second pillar of the business model is the “manufactory bank business”. This includes the larger-volume corporate business, football finance, and the specialized lending area with a focus on acquisition financing and commercial real estate financing. The offering of this area is characterized by an individually tailored profile, larger individual transactions and greater use of resources in advisory and processing, but on the other hand allows higher margins to be achieved. The activities allocated to the Manufacture business have been combined in the “Corporates & Diversified Lending” business area since the beginning of the 2022 financial year.