Norddeutsche Landesbank (NORD/LB) — Niemcy

Norddeutsche Landesbank (NORD/LB) — Germany

Brief history and founding

Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, known as NORD/LB, is one of Germany's Landesbanks and a major public-sector financial institution serving northern Germany and beyond. The bank traces its origins to a long tradition of regional public banking institutions in the northern German Länder and was established in its modern organizational form in the second half of the 20th century to consolidate and coordinate state-level banking services. Over subsequent decades NORD/LB expanded from its core role as a central institution for regional savings banks into a full-service wholesale and corporate bank with activities in real estate finance, project and infrastructure finance, shipping finance, capital markets and asset management.

In recent years the bank has undergone significant restructuring to adapt to market and regulatory changes. Like several other Landesbanks, NORD/LB has at times been exposed to challenges arising from portfolio concentrations (notably in shipping and real-estate related exposures) and has implemented recapitalization and strategic refocusing measures under the oversight of its public owners and banking supervisors.

Type of bank

NORD/LB is a Landesbank — effectively a public-sector commercial and wholesale bank that sits between local savings banks (Sparkassen) and the capital markets. It is not primarily a retail branch bank in the style of a nationwide high-street bank; instead its core activities focus on commercial, institutional, public-sector and interbank business. The bank operates across these main areas:

• Commercial and corporate banking (including services for medium and large enterprises)
• Public-sector finance and municipal banking
• Investment and capital markets activities (including structured finance and syndications)
• Asset management and treasury services
• Specialized financing (notably real estate and historically shipping finance)

Key services offered

NORD/LB provides a broad set of services aimed primarily at corporate, institutional, public-sector and intermediary clients. Typical services include:

• Corporate lending and credit facilities (syndicated loans, structured lending, working capital solutions)
• Project and infrastructure finance (power, utilities, transport, social infrastructure)
• Real estate finance (commercial property lending and structured real estate products)
• Shipping and aviation finance (historically an important specialization; subject to strategic change over time)
• Capital markets and treasury products (derivatives, risk management, bond issuance, sales & trading)
• Public-sector and municipal banking (financing for states, municipalities and public projects)
• Asset and portfolio management for institutional investors
• Services to savings banks and other financial intermediaries (central banking, liquidity management)

The bank also provides private banking and retail-type se