US investors Cerberus Capital Management and JC Flowers & Co have reportedly lodged the highest offer for ailing German bank HSH Nordbank.
According to a news report by Bloomberg, the two partners have jointly bid over €700 mln for the lender, which is majority owned by the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
Rival private equity firm Apollo Global Management is said to be the only other contender.
The German lender, which specialises in shipping and property finance, required a state rescue after being hit by the slump in the shipping industry. The bank must privatise by the end of February under European state-aid rules or face liquidation.
The two federal states jointly hold 89% of HSH, while local savings banks hold 6% and JC Flowers owns 5%.
HSH had total assets of €79 bn as of June and is expecting a slightly higher pretax profits over €173 mln for the first nine months of this year.
New business rose about 10% to €6.4 bn in the year to September, up from €5.8 bn in the same period of the previous year. The company nearly halved non performing loans in the non-core bank from €13.6 bn at year-end 2016 to roughly €8 bn at end September. This is planned to drop to below €4 bn this year.
