Emblematic of shipping’s changing fortunes, Germany’s much-maligned HSH Nordbank has said it wants to get back into maritime.
The bank’s state government owners are selling it to Cerberus Capital Management and JC Flowers, with investors GoldenTree, Centaurus Capital and Austrian bank BAWAG also taking stakes.
“We are looking to re-invest in the shipping space and are looking for high quality business,” Christian Nieswandt, global head of shipping with HSH Nordbank, told Reuters in an interview yesterday. HSH has an annual budget of EUR700m ($811.7m) until 2022 to invest in shipping giving it a massive $4.05bn war chest, some of which will be used to buy loans from other banks.
Up until the global financial crisis hit a decade ago HSH had been one of the largest names in ship finance in the world.
