Saxo Bank, a Danish investment bank specializing in online trading and investment, acquired Binckbank, a Dutch online bank, for €424m ($482m). The €6.35 ($7.22) offer price represents a premium of 35% over the closing price of 14 December 2018. Vincent Germyns, chairman of the BinckBank executive board said: "Merging both companies will help realize important economies of scale. On a term of two to three years, this will of course have consequences for staff. As far as possible these consequences will be met through natural staff turnover. In case of redundancies, a good severance scheme will apply. The executive board, supervisory board and works council support this severance scheme unanimously.”