Pooling agreement (security pool)

When several banks finance the same business, they typically hold differing, sometimes overlapping security interests over inventory, machinery and receivables — granted globally or on a revolving basis and therefore hard to cleanly assign to individual assets. Without coordination, each bank would enforce its own security in isolation, breaking up the business and reducing the total proceeds available to everyone. A pooling agreement bundles the security interests into a shared security pool before the crisis hits.

In practice the pool appoints a lead bank (Poolführer) — usually the one holding the largest credit line — who coordinates realisation, acts as the single point of contact for the insolvency administrator on behalf of all pool members, and distributes proceeds to the pool banks under a pre-agreed formula (often the nominal volume of each bank's security). Individual banks give up the right to enforce separately, but gain planning certainty and a professionally run realisation process.

For buyers out of insolvency, an existing security pool noticeably speeds up the deal: lien release for the acquired assets (cf. right of separate satisfaction) runs through the lead bank instead of separate negotiations with every individual bank — a good sign of a coordinated, professionally run sale process and lower risk of security disputes surfacing after closing.