The head of HSH Nordbank, a Hamburg ship financier, expects bids to come in the next fortnight to take over the bank.
Chief executive Stefan Ermisch told German weekly WirtschaftsWoche ahead of an end-October deadline for bids, “We are very close to an economically sensible solution.”
HSH’s owners, the German states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, must privatise the bank under European state-aid rules by the end of February next year.
Ermisch told WirtschaftsWoche that a financial investor could come in for the bank.
“I expect that HSH will be the first but not the last bank that goes this route,” he said.
