The Federal Association of German Banks (BdB) has paved the way for the inclusion of the former regional bank HSH Nordbank in its deposit protection fund as a condition for the sale and the planned privatisation of the bank. Clifford Chance, supported by the Auditing Association of German Banks (Prüfungsverband deutscher Banken e.V.), advised BdB on the negotiations. This is the first time in German banking history that private investors have been allowed to take over a state-controlled regional bank.

Following pressure from the EU Commission, the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, as owners of HSH Nordbank, agreed to the sale in spring 2018. The buyer is a consortium made up of Cerberus, J.C. Flowers, BAWAG, Centauri and Golden Tree. This transition of the bank from the institutional protection of Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe to the deposit protection fund of BdB was considered a crucial step for the required privatisation being successful.

The solution for the transition to the private deposit protection fund followed months of negotiations between BdB and HSH, the buyers, the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV), as well as the federal states of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

The Clifford Chance team led by partners Marc Benzler (Financial Regulation) and Markus Stephanblome (Corporate) comprised Marc Besen (Antitrust) and Thomas Voland (Public), counsel Stefan Bruder (Corporate), Kerstin Schaepersmann (Financial Regulation) and Dimitri Slobodenjuk (Antitrust), senior associates Annette Röhder and Margret Bootz-Haagen (both Corporate) and associates Nadine Fell (Corporate) and Zaid Mansour (Corporate/Public).