MORE shipowners are expected to lose control of their ships under Germany's HSH Nordbank's new tighter rules for dealing with nonperforming shipping loans, totalling EUR9 billion (US$12.4 billion), under yet-to-be unveiled plans.
The bank's shipping board member, Torsten Temp, told Lloyd's List after HSH announced a pre-tax loss of $780 million that shipping still accounts for one fifth of the bank's income and it has no plans to quit the market
Senior executives are to visit Brussels soon to discuss with European Commission officials the state support that HSH receives from the regional governments of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein.
A limited amount of new money has been made available to a select group of small and medium-sized owners.
HSH has concluded a deal with Navios interests and others, in which 10 debtor ships including five container ships and five product tankers changed hands on terms favourable to the new operators, including soft refinancing.
It is widely believed that the bank was behind a transaction that saw MPC Capital and Thien & Heyenga take over the Ahrenkiel fleet, in a deal that cut Christian Ahrenkiel, son of the founder, completely out of the company.
Roughly EUR14 billion of the loans are in HSH's so-called core bank and the balance of EUR7 billion in its restructuring unit, colloquially known as the bad bank.
Asked whether the bank is concentrating on only the most creditworthy owners, Mr Temp replied, "We are certainly trying to. We are still looking for conservative companies, privately run companies, especially in Greece, and we are taking the same stance in Asia."
He added, "When you look into the newbuilds ordered in the last two years, when you look into the second-hand market, non-container, I think the markets are OK-ish."
"Containers outside Germany is not the best of all the businesses, but still profitable."