Bondholders who collectively own more than EUR 1bn ($1.24bn) of tier 1 instruments and upper tier 2 instruments issued by HSH Nordbank have expressed their concerns over the proposed sale of the bank by majority owners, the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the city of Hamburg.
The government entities entered into an agreement last week to sell HSH Nordbank to a group of private shareholders including investment firms Cerberus European Investments, J. C. Flowers & Co, GoldenTree Asset Managemnt, Centaurus Capital LP and BAWAG, making it the first privatisation of a federal state bank in Germany.
“To date, the holders have been strongly supportive of the privatisation process. However, the announcements each of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, the City of Hamburg and the Bank issued on Wednesday 28 February 2018 left the Holders concerned about the nature of the sale process and its negative impact on the bank and its stakeholders, for the benefit of the buyers,” the bondholders said in a statement.
The group of investors have requested that other interested investors contact them to organise and discuss their concerns collectively.
The sale of the bank is still subject to various approvals from authorities.
The tier 1 & 2 shareholders should sue to stop the sale to the equity/hedge funds as their only interest is to foreclose on the non-performing loans and sell the ships that have securitised them leaving nothing for the Tier shareholders who should be demanding a share of all the sales proceeds of the ships being sold.
Paul Slater