giorni decisivi per westlb
WestLB Owners Propose Turning Lender Into Regionally-Focused Verbundbank
WestLB AG’s owners proposed turning the state-owned company into a regionally focused lender that serves savings banks after the European Commission requested more details on restructuring plans by today.
The bank’s balance sheet would be cut to 45 billion euros ($65 billion) under the plan, said Ingrid Herden, a spokeswoman for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, one of WestLB’s
owners and its home state. A decision to propose the creation of a so- called Verbundbank was taken by the owners yesterday, Herden said today by phone from Dusseldorf,
Germany.
WestLB needed financial aid from its owners and Germany’s Soffin bank-rescue fund after running up losses during the global financial crisis. Two proposals were submitted to the European Commission in February to win approval for state aid as WestLB presses ahead with restructuring plans. The models included breaking up the bank or reducing assets by about one- third by 2015. Parallel to those efforts, the owners were trying to find a buyer for the bank as a whole.
“We present the Verbundbank as an option, and made the final decision yesterday,” Herden said. It’s up to European Competition Commissioner
Joaquin Almunia to decide whether to accept the plan or to continue with the sales process, she said.
“This solution would make sense and is what we think the Commission would favor, but the devil will be in the detail on questions such as how and where assets and liabilities are wound down or divested,” said
Simon Adamson, an analyst at CreditSights in
London. “If accepted, it’s the end of the road for WestLB as we have known it.”
‘Confident’ Government
The German government hasn’t yet sent its proposals on the future of WestLB to the European Union, though it’s “confident” it will meet the deadline of midnight tonight, Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Kreienbaum told reporters in Berlin today. The European Commission is the EU’s executive arm.
Almunia said yesterday that he wants a “clear” plan from the German government on the way forward for WestLB and that he expects to examine the proposal on April 18. That followed comments on April 13, when Almunia said WestLB faced an EU order to repay billions of euros of government aid unless regulators receive a detailed restructuring plan by April 15.
While the creation of a Verbundbank would mean the sale of the bank as a whole will be canceled, there is likely to be a sale of assets, according to Herden. A spokesman for
Friedrich Merz, the lawyer overseeing the sale of WestLB as a whole, said April 7 that two non-binding offers had been received.
Walter Hillebrand-Droste, a spokesman for Dusseldorf-based WestLB, declined to comment, as did Andreas Loebbe, a spokesman for Sparkassenverband Westfalen-Lippe, one of WestLB’s owners.
si parla di far diventare westlb, una piccola banca per le casse di risparmio tedesche e vendere o chiudere il resto.
bisognerá peró capire che fine faranno le nostre p.
let's see
Ma qualcuno glielo ha detto che è nella UE e non a capo di una repubblica delle banane?
Mi sa che possiamo fare un merge con il 3d sul Venezuela..
