HSH Nordbank has announced that it has transferred a portfolio of non-performing loans from its ship finance portfolio totalling EUR5bn to hsh portfolio-management AöR of majority owners Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
HSH Nordbank will receive the transfer price of EUR2.4 bn set by the EU, and will offset losses of EUR2.6bn resulting from the transaction against the guarantee.
The German bank said it is reducing its troubled assets in line with the recently completed EU state aid proceedings, and with the winding-down of this pure shipping loan portfolio (256 ships) it will be less dependent on the US dollar.
“The bank will be provided with perceptible relief effective 30 June. We are improving our risk profile and balance-sheet structure significantly, we are strengthening our capital ratios and are thus taking another important step on the path to the upcoming change in ownership. We are now spinning off around 50 percent of our non-performing shipping loans. In this way we are also reducing our currency exposure at the right time because the underlying economic conditions may deteriorate following the recent political developments in the European Union. On the basis of the EU agreement alone we are planning to halve the volume of our non-performing loans from a good EUR 16 billion recorded at the end of the first quarter of 2016 to around EUR 8 billion by the end of next year”, said Stefan Ermisch, ceo of HSH Nordbank.
HSH Nordbank is planning to sell further non-performing loans valued at EUR 3.2bn dating from the period before 2009 from sectors including shipping, real estate, aviation finance and renewable energies segments.
