NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank successfully completed the sale of a EUR 2.6 billion shipping loan portfolio ("Big Ben" transaction) to an affili-ate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., a global alternative investment manager. The transaction was closed on 9 April, in accordance with the signing of the purchase agreement dated February 2019.

NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank has, together with its owners and the Savings Banks Finance Group, agreed on the key elements of a capital strengthening and revised business model with its former owners and the Savings Banks Finance Group. NORD/LB will remain a business partner for SMEs, savings banks, private and commercial customers as well as institutional investors. It will also continue in its role as a specialist for financing energy and infrastructure projects, real estate and aircraft.

BayWa r.e. and NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank have successfully completed the financing of three new wind farms in Italy with a total vol-ume of more than 100 million euro. The wind farms are currently con-structed by BayWa r.e. (Munich) in the Italian regions of Lazio and Cam-pania and have a total output of around 66 MW.

The NORD/LB Group placed two large-volume own issues on the capital market this week. On Monday, NORD/LB subsidiary Deutsche Hypo issued a benchmark mortgage Pfandbrief with a ten-year term and a volume of EUR 625 million. The bond was primarily placed with institutional investors in Asia and Europe. It carries a coupon of 0.75% and the yield is 0.768%, which equates to a spread of 12bp over mid-swap. At around EUR 750 million, the order book was slightly oversubscribed.

NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank makes measurable contributions to digitization and the global energy transition by way of its project financing operations. 2018 saw the bank arrange an overall volume of EUR 3.5 billion nationally and internationally for energy and infrastructure projects. This puts NORD/LB in the top 3 leading project financing banks worldwide in 2019 for wind and solar farms according to the prestigious Inspiratia industry portal’s ranking.

The owners and Managing Board of NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank welcome the decision of the German Savings Banks Association (Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV)) to contribute to a solution for strengthening NORD/LB’s capital. At today’s Owners’ Meeting, they considered the proposed decision, which was discussed at the meeting with the DSGV and banking supervisory authority on Friday, to be a suitable basis for NORD/LB’s realignment and for the further development of its business model. In further discussions with the DSGV and in coordination with the banking supervisory authority and the EU Commission, the outstanding issues are to be clarified quickly so that these measures can be implemented as soon as possible.

Regarding the bidding process for a minority participation in the bank, NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank has today received a joint offer from two financial investors. NORD/LB had launched a formal bidding process in autumn 2018 and had received four offers from potential bidders after the first selection phase in December. On this basis, negotiations have been held in the past few weeks with investors on the main framework conditions of a participation and on strategic matters. At the same time, NORD/LB and its owners had signalled that they are open to participate in a possible solution within the German public banking sector as well.

NORD/LB Norddeutsche Landesbank can look back on a successful year for its capital market business in 2018. League tables compiled for the sector put the bank among the top five arrangers on the German Pfandbrief market once again. NORD/LB came in third in the ranking of banks involved in arranging issues by the German federal states. Turning to the international market, NORD/LB also made it into the top three for euro covered bond benchmarks in various countries.