WestLB, HSH Nordbank Bail Out $15 Billion of SIVs

Bring on the next state owned bailout.... At least West LB is gettig very close to some kind of bailout. HSH is doing much much better. Both HSH and West LB are in different ways owned through several state or municipal entities. Only 26 percent from HSH was sold last years to J.C. Flowers, a private equity firm. It is getting better. Düsseldorf seems to be the capital of incompetence in Germany. Düsseldorf is the headquarter from West LB & IKB which got a $ 7 billion ( and still counting) bailout earlier this year . I´ll bet that at the next carnival they will have something banking related on their trucks......

Der nächste bitte.......Bei der West LB ist wohl in ganz naher Zukunft in irgendeiner Weise "externe" Hilfe notwendig. Die HSH dürfte das locker wegstecken können. Sowohl die HSH Nordbank als auch die West LB haben mit Ausnahme von 26% der HSH in Weise direkte bzw indirekte ( Sparkassen) staatliche Eigentümer. Sieht ganz so aus als wenn Düsseldorf sich zur Hauptstadt der Inkompetenz in Sachen Banken gemausert hat. Neben der West LB hat auch die IKB ( biher $ 7 Mrd Bailout ...) Ihren Sitz in Düsseldorf. Ich tippe mal das beim nächsten Karnevalsumzug zumindest ein Wagen das Thema aufgreifen wird.....


WestLB, HSH Nordbank Bail Out $15 Billion of SIVs Bloomberg
WestLB AG, Germany's third-largest state-owned bank, and Hamburg-based HSH Nordbank AG provided financing to more than $15 billion of troubled investment funds to prevent a fire sale of their assets.

WestLB provided a credit line for its $11 billion structured investment vehicle called Harrier Finance to repay commercial paper, the Dusseldorf-based bank said in an e-mailed statement today. HSH Nordbank said it will provide backup funding to cover all commercial paper issued by its 3.3 billion- euro ($4.8 billion) Carrera Capital SIV, spokesman Reinhard Schmid said in an interview.

NYT
FRANKFURT, Dec. 3 — In an effort to limit fallout from the subprime lending crisis in the United States, the German bank WestLB said on Monday that it would guarantee full liquidity to several of its investment vehicles that had put money into asset-backed securities.

WestLB, based in Düsseldorf and one of the regional German banks, or Landesbanken, has two major programs, known as Harrier Finance Funding and Kestrel Funding, that borrow money by selling short-term commercial paper to investors. They then invest the proceeds in higher-yielding securities, including ones backed by American mortgages.

WestLB also has three other similar investment vehicles, known as conduits. All five will have the option of drawing up to 25 billion euros, or $36.6 billion, as the short-term paper comes due.

> Put this gigantic figure in comparison with the numbers from the balance sheet...... No wonder Libor rates are surging around the globe.....

> Nun setzt diese Wahnsinnssummen ins Verhältnis zur den Bilanzdaten....... Kein Wunder das sich Bänker untereinander nicht traeun und den Libor in die Stratosphäre schiessen lassen.....

“This will ensure that there is no compelled liquidation of the assets in the SIVs,” said Armin Kloss, a WestLB spokesman, referring to structured investment vehicles. “We are also convinced that the assets that Kestrel and Harrier have could be more highly valued, but that the market is not ready for that.”

WestLB said in August that “less than 5 percent” of its investments was subprime-related, Mr. Kloss said. But trading in asset-backed securities has largely stopped, so a forced sale now would cost the bank dearly.

Like other banks and many politicians, WestLB is betting that the market will recover.

I suggest to read this from FT Alphaville related to the NAVRevenge of the SIV: still going down

Ich empfehle zu diesem Thema Revenge of the SIV: still going down vi FT Alphaville zu lesen.

HSH Nordbank, based in Hamburg, is taking a similar step to that of WestLB, covering all of the 3.3 billion euros that its vehicle, called Carrera Capital, has issued. The step has helped secure its stable credit ratings with Moody’s Investor Service and Standard & Poor’s.

“What we’re trying to do is avoid a write-down,” Reinhard Schmid, an HSH Nordbank spokesman, said. “We can do that with liquidity.”

Two German banks, IKB Deutsche Industriebank and Landesbank Sachsen, needed an outside rescue in August when their speculation in subprime-related securities went awry. But those problems far outstripped what much more stable banks like WestLB and HSH Nordbank are facing. IKB Deutsche and SachsenLB set up funds that were triple or quintuple the size of their capital on hand.

> I wouldn´t call West LB "stable".....

> Mir würde das Wort "stabil" im Zusammenhang mit der West LB nicht über die Lippen kommen.....

The British bank HSBC said last week that it would spend $35 billion to bring two vehicles it ran directly onto its books, effectively turning the bank into their guarantor of liquidity.

A similar principle underlies the so-"Superfund"— formally known as the Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit — proposed by Citigroup, the largest sponsor of such vehicles in the world. Together with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup is proposing that up to $80 billion be devoted to buying up mortgage-backed securities and holding them until the market relaxes.