Hanover-based Nord/LB has confirmed that it received a joint offer from two financial investors for a minority stake in the bank.
After launching a formal bidding process in 2018, Nord/LB said it had received four offers from potential bidders after the first selection phase in December. Over the past few weeks, Nord/LB held negotiations with potential investors on the main framework conditions.
While reports suggest that Centerbridge Partners and Cerberus Capital Management are behind a joint offer, Nord/LB would not name the two investors.
HLPFI readers may recall that Cerberus Capital Management, in a consortium with J.C. Flowers, acquired Germany’s state-owned HSH Nordbank last year.
While Nord/LB evaluates the proposals, the bank’s ceo Thomas Bürkle confirmed that it is still open to negotiating a possible solution within the public banking sector.
Bürkle added: “Nord/LB is a well-positioned bank in various profitable business areas. That’s why we succeeded in the last few years in managing one of the most serious crises of all time in ship financing.
“We are now well on the way to cleaning up our ship financing portfolio by significantly reducing our legacy non-performing loan (NPL) portfolio.”
As HLPFI reported here, the bank has set itself the target of cutting its NPL portfolio to under EUR5 billion (USD5.68 billion) by the end of 2019.
