HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt, the German arm of HSBC, could win a role in the future equity offering from Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) after jointly buying an 11.88% stake in the German utility with Deutsche Bank.

EnBW is already listed on Deutsche Börse but it only has a freefloat of 1.6% and trading is minimal so any new share sale is effectively an initial public offering. A banker close to the deal said that because of this, the banks' new stake is worth €940m despite the fact that according to Reuters the stake is worth €428m, based on a current market capitalisation of €3.6bn ($3.6bn). Deutsche and HSBC did not release details of the price they paid.