HSH Nordbank Offloads Billions Worth of Bad Shipping Loans

Germany’s HSH Nordbank, one of the world’s biggest providers of shipping finance, transferred a portfolio of non-performing loans from ship financing with a volume of EUR 5 billion (USD 5.5 billion) to hsh portfolio-management AöR of majority owners Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein effective June 30, as planned.

In return, HSH Nordbank will receive the transfer price of EUR 2.4 billion set by the EU, and will offset losses of EUR 2.6 billion resulting from the transaction against the guarantee.

“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,” Stefan Ermisch, CEO of HSH Nordbank AG, said.

With this move, HSH Nordbank is reducing its troubled assets, in line with the recently completed EU state aid proceedings.

Furthermore, with the winding-down of this pure shipping loan portfolio (256 ships) it will be less dependent on the US dollar.

HSH Nordbank is planning to sell further non-performing loans with a volume of EUR 3.2 billion dating from the period before 2009, this time from the shipping, real estate, aviation finance and renewable energies segments, on the market by mid-2017 with hedging from the guarantee.