When most recently reporting on the latest European banking crisis, yesterday we observed a surprising development involving Deutsche Bank, namely the bank’s decision to quietly liquidate some of its shipping loans. As Reuters reported, “Deutsche Bank is looking to sell at least $1 billion of shipping loans to lighten its exposure to the sector whose lenders face closer scrutiny from the European Central Bank.
“They are looking to lighten their portfolio and this includes toxic debt. It makes commercial sense to try and sell off some of their book,” one finance source said. Deutsche Bank, which has around $5 billion to $6 billion worth of total exposure to the shipping sector, declined to comment.”
This confirms what had long been speculated, if not confirmed, namely that German banks have been some of the biggest lenders to the shipping sector, a sector which has since found itself in significant trouble as a result of the ongoing slowdown in global trade.
And now, it appears that some shipping loans gone very bad could be the catalyst for Europe’s banking crisis to finally breach the most impenetrable border of all, that of Germany.
Because it is in Germany where we find what may be the next domino to fall as part of Europe’s latest banking crisis incarnation: Bremen Landesbank.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jul 7, 2016.
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