WestLB Will Be RestLB
Beleagured German regional bank
WestLB earned a new nickname this week after a long tug-of-war on how to downsize its operations and find a new owner by year-end: RestLB.
The 11th-hour plan prosposed by the German government involves selling off the bank’s healthy parts to an investor and corraling a further €100 billion in unattractive assets into a bad bank. The regrouping of the remaining operations—the RestLB—could later prove a milestone in the long-awaited consolidation of Germany’s
Landesbanken.
It’s all but a foregone conclusion that the former flagship of the German public banking sector will be broken up, after the German government submitted a break-up solution right before midnight Tuesday, the deadline set by the EU Commission.
In 2009, the Commission mandated WestLB to shrink its balance sheet by 50% and find a new owner by the end of this year. This was after it had to be rescued with €16 billion of taxpayers’ money, according to EU calculations. The Commission stepped up its downsizing requirement last November, when it realized WestLB had received €3.4 billion in undisclosed state funds when it off-loaded €77 billion of assets into a bad bank—something the Commission wasn’t expecting.
The Commission then set a Feb. 15 final deadline for the bank and its owners to submit a convincing restructuring proposal, including a cut in its balance sheet and risk-weighted assets and a long-term business model.
What remains of WestLB will be a so-called Verbundbank, with a size of roughly €45 billion—a quarter of the bank’s current balance sheet. The new core bank will service local savings banks and do transaction business. The core bank’s staff will be cut to a maximum of 1,000 people, compared with the current 5,000 staff at WestLB worldwide.
WestLB’s radical restructuring could refresh hopes for Germany’s troubled Landesbanken sector—which is riddled with inefficiencies and overcapacities—through broader change and consolidation.
But the wrangling and time it took to reach a solution on downsizing WestLB means regulators shouldn’t get their hopes up too high. If WestLB is any indication of what EU commissioner Joaquin Almunia will face with the three other German banking restructuring cases—real estate financer Hypo Real Estate, and the Landesbanken HSH Nordbank and BayernLB—he will have his hands full.
Earlier this month Almunia said he wants to solve these problem cases before the official summer break. Since the Commission reportedly suspects HRE also received hidden state aid when off-loading assets, he might as well cancel his holidays.