Landesbank Schleswig-Holstein

HSH Nordbank

Type	Aktiengesellschaft
Industry	Banking
Founded	June 2, 2003
Headquarters	Hamburg, Germany
Key people	Constantin von Oesterreich (CEO) Dr. Thomas Mirow (Pres. of supervisory board)
Products	Financial services
Net income	€ 124 million (2012)
Total assets	€ 130.6 billion (2012)
Total equity	12.3% (2012)
Number of employees	3,123 (2012)
Website	www.hsh-nordbank.com

HSH Nordbank is a commercial bank in northern Europe with headquarters in Hamburg as well as Kiel, Germany. It is active in corporate and private banking. Considered to be the world’s largest provider of maritime finance, its main focus is on shipping, transportation, real estate and renewable energy. The bank was created as a result of a merger between Hamburgische Landesbank and Landesbank Schleswig-Holstein on June 2, 2003. HSH has significant operations in Luxembourg, New York City, London (the Bank no longer has an office in London) and Singapore. As of 12/2009 it employed 4,188 people worldwide.

As of 12/2009 HSH Nordbank had a balance sheet of EUR 174.5 billion and reported a loss of EUR 678 mn.

The shareholders are:

In the merger the City of Hamburg and the State of Schleswig-Holstein agreed to hold the majority of shares at least until End of 2013.

HSH Nordbank buckled under excessive risk-taking prior to the financial crisis of 2007-2010 , when it had sought to expand beyond its roots as a regional lender to companies and savings banks into global capital markets. With the beginning of the crisis, HSH had to report losses on their credit investment portfolio. In September 2008 HSH Nordbank announced further writedowns. As a direct consequence the CEO Hans Berger stepped down and in the following weeks HSH announced extensive restructuring. Branches in Copenhagen and Hong Kong were reduced to representations and new business will be focussed on the core region in northern Germany.

In December 2008 HSH Nordbank was granted to issue up to EUR 30 billion guaranteed notes under the German SoFFin program. One requirement that was imposed on HSH was to raise the capital ratio to at least 8%. On January 20, 2009 EUR 3 billion 3 year guaranteed notes were issued. On February 24, 2009 HSH received new capital of EUR 3 billion and credit guarantees of EUR 10 billion by the two main shareholders, the states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. The other shareholders, JC Flowers and the savings bank association, did not participate in the capital infusion. Together with this increase of its core-capital, HSH announced further restructuring. It plans to spin off non-strategic activities and the Toxic asset portfolio into a—yet to be created—Bad Bank.