The rise and fall of Hamburg shipping lender HSH Nordbank mirrors the turbulent history of German maritime finance. Now the takeover of HSH by private equity firms opens a new chapter, reports Nicholas Brautlecht.

The story of HSH Nordbank, once the world’s largest ship financing bank, has everything that a gripping drama set in the financial world needs. Greedy bankers, naive politicians, billions of lost money and, as a bonus feature: ships.

Now, that drama has reached a new chapter: The state owners of HSH sold the bank to a group of buyout firms, an act that only months ago most observers deemed highly unlikely. After two state rescues, the European Union had ordered that HSH must be privatized to comply with its aid rules or be wound down, putting 2.000 jobs at HSH at risk. The deadline was on February 28.

At the start of the sales process last year, observers doubted that HSH owners, the regional states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, would find a buyer. The bank is crippled by billions of euros in faulty shipping loans and the deepest shipping sector slump on record. Still, within months a number of financial investors threw their hat into the ring, offering some glimmer of hope for employees.

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