MUNICH (02/17/2000) - Deutsche Telekom AG's online service, T-Online International AG, and one of Germany's top banks, Commerzbank AG, today announced a cooperation agreement to develop online banking products via the bank's discount brokerage unit.
Through a stock swap, T-Online will take a 25 percent share in Commerzbank's discount broker, Comdirect Bank AG , while Commerzbank itself will take a financially equivalent stake in T-Online, said Andreas Bartels, a spokesman for Comdirect Bank.
Both companies will have representation on one another's supervisory boards, Deutsche Telekom said in a statement issued today.
The two companies will not give out more exact financial details on the tie-up, as they both have upcoming IPOs (initial public offerings) in the works.
T-Online is expected to offer its shares to the public in April, and Comdirect's IPO is expected some time in the second quarter of this year, Bartels said.
Through the relationship with Comdirect, T-Online will add financial offerings to its online portal, giving its 4.2 million customers the ability, for example, to register for share offerings of IPOs, the companies said in a joint statement issued today.
Beyond that, the products and services to be offered by the two companies have not yet been determined, according to Bartels. "We are at the beginning of this partnership, we only know the general direction we are going," he said.
Comdirect, with 305,000 customers, is Germany's largest discount broker. Such institutions allow customers to conduct financial transactions at discounted prices by forgoing extras such as financial advice.
T-Online is cutting deals with potential partners at a fast and furious pace ahead of its IPO. Just yesterday, Deutsche Telekom said that it would merge T-Online with Club-Internet, the ISP (Internet service provider) owned by French conglomerate Lagardère SCA. [See "DT to Merge T-Online with France's Club-Internet," Feb. 16.]Last week, T-Online also announced it will create a joint venture with T-Mobil International AG, Deutsche Telekom's mobile phone subsidiary, to offer mobile services to European consumers. [See "T-Online, T-Mobil form European JV," Feb.
10.]
T-Online, in Bonn, can be reached at http://www.t-online.de/.Deutsche Telekom, also in Bonn, can be reached at +49-228-181-4949, or via the Web at http://www.telekom.de/. Comdirect can be reached at http://www.comdirect.de/.