The story
The Südwestbank was originally founded in 1922 as Württembergische Landwirtschaftsbank GmbH in Stuttgart. In 1954 it was continued as Südwestdeutsche Landwirtschaftsbank GmbH. From the year 1964, it traded as Südwestbank GmbH. By changing the legal form in 1970 it became the Südwestbank AG. Organizationally, the bank was connected to the Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken (BVR). The main owner was the DZ Bank.
In 2004, Santo Holding GmbH of Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann bought DZ Bank's stake of 89.6%. As a result, the Südwestbank left the union of cooperative banks and joined the Bundesverband deutscher Banken and its deposit insurance fund on 1 January 2005. In spring 2008, its CEO was dismissed and the business strategy was redirected toward wealthy private customers. At the beginning of 2010, Santo Holding GmbH sold its 94% stake to Santo Vermögensbeteiligung GmbH. The equity capital of Südwestbank more than doubled at the end of 2013 as a result of an equity contribution of € 386 million. On 25 August 2016, Südwestbank received permission from the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht to issue debenture bonds. From now on, the independent private bank was also a Debenture bond bank and one of the only four percent of German banks that are Debenture bond banks.
In 2017, the Austrian bank BAWAG P.S.K. took over the Südwestbank from the previous owners Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann. The Südwestbank is set to serve as a platform for Germany to further expand Bawag P.S.K.
From Wikipedia’s article on Südwestbank, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5