The leading German housing group Vonovia is about to take over its largest competitor, Deutsche Wohnen.

And this is his third attempt: In 2016, the board members and shareholders were just as unable to come to an agreement as in the previous year.

This time, however, the signs are pointing to green - board members and supervisory boards agree on the merger of the two companies, and the management of the new company has already been named.

Vonovia boss Rolf Buch will be the chairman of the board, and his deputy will be Deutsche Wohnen boss Michael Zahn.

Added market value of around 48 billion euros

So there is much to suggest that a new giant is emerging on the German housing market with 550,000 apartments and an added market value of around 48 billion euros.

This would make Vonovia the clear leading housing group in Europe too.

Nonetheless, objections of a competition law nature are rather unlikely: In view of around 20 million rental apartments, Vonovia would only have a market share of just under 3 percent even after the takeover.

Contradiction is most likely to come from Berlin, where Deutsche Wohnen has a clear focus.

But Vonovia would only have a single-digit market share in the capital.

Both companies want to take the wind out of the sails of the expected political resistance with the offer to the Senate to sell 20,000 apartments at a low price.

The transaction makes sense at first glance.

Renting apartments is a long-term, stable and profitable business that the corona epidemic had little effect on, not least because of government aid for tenants.

Housing values ​​also did not suffer during the crisis.

The two market leaders together have good chances of saving costs through economies of scale in the management of the apartments.

That certainly promotes the approval of the shareholders of both groups.

Nevertheless, the share prices of the two companies listed in the Dax have developed worse than the index since the beginning of the year. This has to do with the greatest threat to their business model, the political regulation of rents. It is true that the Federal Constitutional Court recently conceded the Berlin rent decal on the grounds that the federal government was responsible for such interventions in the housing market. But the Greens, Leftists and parts of the SPD have accepted this as a template to tighten rent regulation at the federal level at the latest after the federal elections - be it through a nationwide rent cap or a stricter rental price limit.

In Berlin there is an expropriation initiative to make things more difficult: Corporations with more than 3,000 apartments are to be forced to sell to the Senate - at prices below market levels if possible.

The residents of the capital will presumably vote on this on the day of the federal election, September 26th.

Surveys show that approval is by no means ruled out.

This, too, should have made it easier for Deutsche Wohnen boss Michael Zahn, who has so far resisted a takeover by Vonovia, to say yes to the takeover by Vonovia.