HSH Nordbank confirmed this week that it has received several binding bids for the entire business, in a significant step towards its EU-enforced privatisation.
Bidders for the lender, which is owned by the federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, reportedly include private equity firms Apollo, Cerberus and JC Flowers, as well as Lone Star and Chinese insurance company Anbang.
'These binding bids take us a big step closer to a successful privatisation solution. In the future, we will support our federal state owners to the best of our ability because we regard this firm investor interest as both an affirmation and an incentive,' commented CEO Stefan Ermisch. 'We will also be reducing our legacy assets dating back to the years before 2009 to an entirely acceptable degree, thereby keeping our capital ratios at a solid level.'
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 privatize 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, which is due to publish final nine-month figures at end November, said it expects to nearly halve 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 next year.
