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Germany's Hypo Real Estate will survive: CEO
AFP - Monday, March 30
BERLIN (AFP) - - Germany's stricken Hypo Real Estate bank will survive, its head insisted Sunday, after the government said it would take an 8.7 percent stake in the lender as the first step towards full nationalisation.
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Speaking a day after unveiling a net 2008 loss of 5.46 billion euros (7.26 billion dollars), chief executive Axel Wieandt hailed the state's decision to buy 20 million HRE shares for 60 million euros as "good news."
"With the proposed long-term liquidity and capital support, the Federal Republic ... has put in place the necessary requirements for HRE to continue," Wieandt said in a conference call.
"We welcome this step. It is in the interests of the company and clearly good news," he added.
The purchase of HRE shares -- at the minimum legal price of three euros per share -- is an "important signal, an important first step," he said.
The chief executive said the state's backing would allow HRE "to again successfully act in the markets" as it reduces the amount the bank has to pay for refinancing costs.
The German government eventually intends to gain full control over the troubled mortgage lender, which has been hammered by the global financial crisis and seen its share price plunge by over 90 percent over the past year.
Berlin is concerned that a collapse of HRE could have catastrophic consequences similar to those sparked by the bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September, which rocked financial markets worldwide.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has described the ploughing of billions of euros of taxpayers' cash into the bank as an emergency but necessary step to prevent contagion spreading throughout Germany and beyond.
"The stabilisation and rescue of HRE must succeed. It is in everyone's interests," the chief executive stressed.
But he refused to speculate on when the government might take further stakes in the bank. HRE has already benefited from more than 100 billion euros in private and public aid to keep it afloat.
Turning to the lender's present difficulties, Wieandt acknowledged that the bank expected to be "in a loss situation for at least the next two years."
"Nevertheless, we see our medium-term strategic prospects as positive," he said.
Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, last week approved a controversial law allowing the state to nationalise HRE, in a hostile takeover if necessary but only as a last resort.
The law, which brings back painful memories in Germany of Nazi expropriations of Jewish firms in the 1930s and Soviet seizures in East Germany during the Cold War, is set to be adopted formally on April 3.
The proposed legislation would enable Berlin to seize the shares of US investor Christopher Flowers, who heads a consortium that owns 24 percent of HRE.
Citing potential conflicts of interest, Flowers resigned from HRE's supervisory board Friday.
He has said he wants to keep his holding and warned that the emergency law will damage Germany's reputation among foreign investors.
Wieandt refused to comment on the state of negotiations between Flowers and the finance ministry.
However, he said the company's plans for lay-offs as a result of its difficulties would be "unchanged."
In December, HRE unveiled drastic measures to stave off collapse, saying it would slash its workforce by almost half in three years.
"The number of employees will go from some 1,800 to about 1,000 over the next three years," the bank said, with two-thirds of the axed jobs outside Germany.
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The Hypo Real Estate logo is displayed at its headquarter in Munich, 2008. Germany's stricken Hypo Real Estate bank will survive, its head insisted, after the government said it would take an 8.7 percent stake in the lender as the first step towards full nationalisation.
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