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The Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (abbreviated NORD/LB) is a German Landesbank and one of the largest commercial
bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...
s in
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It is a public corporation majority-owned by the federal states of
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
and
Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...
with its head office in
Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
and branches in
Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...
and
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...
. Regional Sparkassen hold a minority stake of 35 percent.


History


Beginnings

NORD/LB was established in 1765 as ''Braunschweigische Staatsbank''. Under the current name, the bank started its business on 1 July 1970. The main areas of specialization of NORD/LB are
investment banking Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...
, agricultural and real estate banking,
corporate finance Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, the capital structure of corporations, the actions that managers take to increase the Value investing, value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and anal ...
, ship and aircraft financing and private banking. NORD/LB maintains branch offices in all major financial and trading centers, including
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
(since 1985),
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
(since 2004) and
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
(since 1991). Today, NORD/LB is Germany's largest bank for national and international bond issues. In 1992, a new state treaty between the federal states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania was signed so that NORD/LB; NORD/LB became the first landesbank owned by three German federal states.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (MV; ; nds, Mäkelborg-Vörpommern), also known by its anglicized name Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, is a state in the north-east of Germany. Of the country's sixteen states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ranks 14th in po ...
sold its stake in NORD/LB in 2005.


Financial crisis of 2007-2010

Before the
financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fi ...
, NORD/LB, like many German banks, pushed into lending to companies transporting the world's burgeoning trade in goods and raw materials, propelling Germany to the top spot in ship lending worldwide. Following the crisis, it joined peers such as HSH Nordbank,
Commerzbank Commerzbank AG () is a major German bank operating as a universal bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In the 2019 financial year, the bank was the second largest in Germany by the total value of its balance sheet. Founded in 1870 in Hambur ...
, Deutsche Hypothekenbank and KfW in taking large writedowns and boosting capital buffers against the risk of shipping loans turning sour. In 2010, NORD/LB sold its minority share in DnB NORD to Norwegian DNB ASA. Similar to other public lenders, it opted for additional support from its regional state owners instead of drawing on help from SoFFin, the federal government’s bail-out scheme.


Restructuring

By 2016, however, NORD/LB still saw a record loss of 1.96 billion euros ($2.1 billion), caused by 2.94 billion euros in provisions for bad shipping loans. As a result, it took full control of its loss-making Bremer Landesbank (BLB) unit, which suffered particularly from a weak shipping market that was chipping away at its capital. Between 2016 and 2017, NORD/LB engaged in – ultimately unsuccessful – negotiations on selling a $1.5 billion portfolio of shipping loans to KKR Credit and a sovereign wealth fund. By late 2016, it still had about 8 billion euros in non-performing shipping loans in its books. In 2016, NORD/LB also tasked
N M Rothschild & Sons Rothschild & Co is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company, and the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the French and British branches of the Rothschild family. The banking business o ...
with advising it on options for its restructuring, including the sale of Deutsche Hypothekenbank. By the end of 2017,
Aareal Bank Aareal Bank AG is an international company listed on the MDAX index with headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, which traded as DePfa Deutsche Bau- und Boden Bank AG and formed part of the DePfa Gruppe until 2002. Aareal Bank is represented on th ...
and
Deutsche Pfandbriefbank Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG is a German bank that specialises in real estate and public sector financing. As of 2016, it is a constituent of the SDAX trading index of German small-cap companies. It is based in Garching in Bayern, a suburb of Munic ...
(PBB) were expected to hand in final offers for Deutsche Hypo, with the bids valuing the bank at more than 0.7 times its book value of about 700 million euros. That year, the bank turned a small profit. In January 2018, NORD/LB decided not to sell after all. Instead, it sold the majority of its asset management arm to M. M. Warburg & Co. Also, several banks and investment firms – Advent International,
Apollo Global Management Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...
, Centerbridge Partners, Cerberus Capital Management, Christofferson, Robb & Company,
Commerzbank Commerzbank AG () is a major German bank operating as a universal bank, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. In the 2019 financial year, the bank was the second largest in Germany by the total value of its balance sheet. Founded in 1870 in Hambur ...
and Helaba – submitted bids for a stake in the bank and a 3.5 billion euro ($3.98 billion) capital injection. Eventually, Cerberus and Centerbrigde submitted a joint offer, suggesting to each acquire a 24.9 per cent stake. Helaba ended up not handing in a final offer and was therefore no longer part of the formal auction process, but talks between NORD/LB and Helaba stakeholders continued throughout the bidding process on whether a public-sector solution could be found. Meanwhile, in October 2018, NORD/LB scored worst among German lenders in the European Banking Authority's EU-wide stress tests. It also incurred a record loss of more than 2 billion euros. Under a last-minute 3.6 billion euros rescue plan for NORD/LB presented in early 2019, the
Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband The Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV, ) is the association of German savings banks (german: Sparkassen) and the apex entity of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the European Union's second-largest financial services group (after BNP Paribas ...
(DSGV) provided about 1.2 billion euros in fresh equity. Lower Saxony’s state government – then led by Minister-President Stephan Weil − provided another 1.5 billion euros in cash plus an unspecified amount of non-cash balance sheet support needed to close a 3.5 billion euros equity shortfall at the bank. The state of Saxony-Anhalt agreed to contribute 198 million euros. In addition, Lower Saxony guaranteed some loans which brought NORD/LB further capital relief of 800 million euros. In recent years, NORD/LB has developed a range of partners to bundle loan portfolios and place them with investors, working with insurers Talanx and ERGO Group, Bankhaus Lampe and Bavarian pension fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK). Its lending business runs on a joint IT platform with BayernLB.


Assets

NORD/LB holds shares in various subsidiaries, including the following: * Braunschweigische Landessparkasse * Bremer Landesbank (100%) * Caplantic GmbH (45%) *
Deutsche Hypothekenbank The Deutsche Hypothekenbank (Actien-Gesellschaft) is a Mortgage bank based in Hanover, which specializes in the financing of commercial real estate and the capital market business with domestic and foreign clients. It is a company of NORD/LB and ...
(100%) * KreditServices Nord (100%) * NORD/LB Asset Management (100%) * Norddeutsche Facility Management GmbH (100%) * LBS Norddeutsche Landesbausparkasse Berlin-Hannover (44%) * NORD/LB Luxembourg S.A. Covered Bond Bank (100%) * NORD/LB Vermögensmanagement Luxembourg S.A (100%) * Öffentliche Versicherung Braunschweig (75%) * Öffentliche Versicherung Bremen (20%) * Nord Holding (15%) * Toto-Lotto Niedersachsen (49.85%) * Bremer Toto und Lotto (33.33%) *
International Neuroscience Institute International Neuroscience Institute or INI is an international research institute and hospital
, official website
in Hanover, ...
(22.67%) * Porzellanmanufaktur Fürstenberg (98%) * LHI Leasing GmbH (49%) Between 1973 and 2010, NORD/LB held a 25 percent share in
Berenberg Bank Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service investment bank based in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded by the Flemish Berenberg family in 1590 () and ...
.


Art collection

In 1985 NORD/LB started to build up an art collection with the aim of representing post-1945
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...
in an international context. The collection today comprises about 3,000 artworks, still with an emphasis on postwar art, including
Georg Baselitz Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the ...
, Joseph Beuys,
Gerhard Richter Gerhard Richter (; born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. He is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary German ...
,
Sol LeWitt Solomon "Sol" LeWitt (September 9, 1928 – April 8, 2007) was an American artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism. LeWitt came to fame in the late 1960s with his wall drawings and "structures" (a term he pref ...
, Jeff Koons, Jannis Kounellis and
Jörg Immendorff Jörg Immendorff (14 June 1945 – 28 May 2007) was a German painter, sculptor, stage designer and art professor. He was a member of the art movement ''Neue Wilde''. Early life and education Immendorff was born in Bleckede, Lower Saxony, n ...
, among others. Employees can use the works to decorate the buildings, and they are displayed within the bank's own exhibition program. In 1999 it was able to open the exhibition space of its own. In 2009, NORD/LB returned
Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...
's ''Cat Behind a Tree'' (1910), a painting the bank had bought in 1983, to the descendant of a Jewish shoe-manufacturing family persecuted by the Nazis; the bank had loaned the painting long-term to the
Sprengel Museum Sprengel Museum is a museum of modern art in Hanover, Lower Saxony, holding one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building situated adjacent to the Masch Lake (german: Maschsee) approximately south ...
in Hanover. In 2012, the bank sold its Jeff Koons sculpture, ''Tulips'' (1995-2004), from the “Celebration” series for 33.7 million dollars. The bank announced to use the proceeds to set up a foundation to promote contemporary art and cultural projects in northern Germany.


In China

* On March 10, 2004, NORD/LB received a letter from the China Banking Regulatory Commission, approving the opening of a branch in Shanghai.


See also

*
Rollei Rollei () was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by and in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the ...
* 2010 Nord LB Open


References


External links


NORD/LB New York
{{Authority control Companies based in Hanover Companies based in Braunschweig Landesbanks 1970 establishments in West Germany Banks established in 1970 Banks under direct supervision of the European Central Bank