(Reuters) - South African retailer Steinhoff said on Thursday it had agreed to sell a 50 percent stake in German furniture chain POCO to Andreas Seifert, settling a German lawsuit over the ownership of the business.

Seifert claimed half-ownership of POCO, while Steinhoff had said he had to be bought out due to unspecified actions by his company, Seifert Enterprises.

Steinhoff said that parties in the hearing at a German court had agreed to settle and Seifert entities offered to buy a 50 percent stake in POCO based on an agreed equity valuation of 532.5 million euros (465 million pounds) for the whole business.

As a result, XXXLutz, a furniture chain owned by Seifert, paid 266 million euros ($324 million) for the retailer that employs 8,000 workers in 123 stores with about 1.6 billion euros in sales.

With the new acquisition, the Austrian company, which owns other furniture chains in Germany such as XXXL Mann Mobilia and Moemax, will have 380 stores in Germany with 5.6 billion euros in sales.

The Cartel Office has yet to approve the acquisition.

"At XXXLutz, POCO is in better hands. XXXLutz has better possibilities than us," POCO founder Peter Pohlmann, who participated in the talks, told German daily Handelsblatt on Wednesday.

XXXLutz said POCO would have many synergies after the acquisition. "POCO will emerge stronger in the future," XXXLutz said.

In February, a Dutch court ordered Steinhoff International to amend its 2016 accounts, handing victory to former business partner Seifert in the dispute over POCO.

(Reporting by Rahul B in Bengaluru and Riham Alkousaa in Frankfurt. Editing by Jane Merriman/David Evans)