The German bank Hypo Real Estate (HRE) was granted a last-minute “multi-billion euro” credit line from a consortium of German banks that allowed it to avoid declaring bankruptcy, it said yesterday.
A consortium has provided the troubled real estate lender “a major new credit facility which is designed to shield the company from the impact of the current malfunctioning of the international money markets,” a statement said.
The unspecified amount was “sufficient to cover the group’s funding needs well into the future,” it said.
WATCHDOG
The German central bank and the stock market watchdog BaFin said separately that they “felt that Hypo Real Estate’s viability was thus guaranteed.”
The lender had launched talks with unidentified German banks “in response to the extremely challenging conditions on the international money markets following the Lehman collapse and other market disruptions,” HRE said in reference to the bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Banks that normally borrow money on interbank markets have seen that source dry up since the US subprime mortgage crisis erupted more than a year ago.
Institutions that depended on regular refinancing of their debts have found themselves running into crisis.
RESCUE
The daily Financial Times Deutschland reported yesterday that private German banks had been trying “feverishly” to find a way to rescue the institution, hit hard by the US subprime loan crisis that began in August last year.
The report said the bank, which is listed among Germany’s 30 blue chip Dax index companies, had fallen victim to speculation by its German-Irish unit Depfa.
The newspaper said Depfa had pursued long-term projects with heavy loans and generally ensured refinancing only at the last minute, which because of the global credit crunch was no longer possible.
TAB
HRE would have to pick up the tab for the refinancing, estimated to be in the double-digit billions of euros range, according to the report.
“It is highly unlikely at the present time that HRE will be able to come up with that amount,” Financial Times Deutschland wrote ahead of the reported rescue package.
HRE, incorporated in October 2003 in Munich, operates in three sectors: commercial real estate; public sector and infrastructure finance; and capital markets and asset management.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS