Bitpanda Delays Frankfurt IPO as CEO Enzersdorfer-Konrad…

Bitpanda is heading into its second leadership change in little more than a year. CEO Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad will leave the Austrian investment platform in the first quarter of 2027 to join Erste Group as Executive Director Asset Management, a newly created group-wide position reporting directly to Erste CEO Peter Bosek. In the new role he will oversee the integration of asset management and digital investing across Erste's eight core markets and roughly 23 million customers.

Co-founder and Chief Scientist Christian Trummer has been appointed Co-CEO with immediate effect and will run the company alongside Enzersdorfer-Konrad during the handover. Bitpanda's board has opened a formal succession process covering both internal and external candidates, but has not said whether Trummer is in contention for the permanent job.

Enzersdorfer-Konrad joined Bitpanda in 2018, became Deputy CEO in 2022 and was promoted to Co-CEO in August 2025. He took the sole CEO role three months later, when co-founder Eric Demuth shifted from day-to-day management to Executive Chairman. Trummer founded Bitpanda with Demuth and Paul Klanschek in 2014 and has recently focused on the technology behind its trading platform; the company said his broader remit will add executive attention to product development, including its multi-asset offering and the infrastructure it supplies to banks and other institutions.

IPO still on hold, profitability under pressure

Bitpanda had reportedly been preparing a Frankfurt Stock Exchange listing in the first half of 2026 at a valuation of €4 billion to €5 billion, with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank reportedly selected to work on the deal. That window has now passed. Enzersdorfer-Konrad said the company remains ready to go public but has paused the process because market conditions are unfavourable, adding that it must weigh the right market timing and what is best for the business. No revised timetable has been announced.

The expansion that preceded the listing attempt has weighed on earnings. Adjusted revenue rose 16% to €371 million in 2025, but adjusted EBITDA fell 75% to €13 million as spending rose on product development, international growth and regulatory infrastructure. Bitpanda launched margin trading on stocks and ETFs in July and has been building out its senior team across growth, compliance, risk and anti-financial crime.

Regulatory scrutiny has increased alongside that footprint. Austria's Financial Market Authority fined Bitpanda GmbH €70,000 in August for breaches of the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, saying the firm did not submit a crypto-asset white paper at least 20 working days before publication, distributed marketing material before the white paper appeared and omitted mandatory disclosures and contact details. The penalty related to disclosure and marketing obligations rather than custody or the company's authorisation, and the proceeding is closed. Bitpanda says it serves more than seven million users across 45 markets, and recently extended its infrastructure work to support an expansion of BW-Bank's digital investing offering in Germany.