Global Shipping Industry in "Increasingly Critical State"

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday December 6, 2012

Citing "very difficult underlying conditions," particularly in the shipping sector, German bank HSH Nordbank AS said it increased its loan loss provisions for the first nine months of the year to negative-€458 million ($593 million), compared with a positive write-back of €365 million ($473 million) in the same period last year.

"In view of the euro sovereign debt crisis, the global economic downturn and especially the increasingly critical state of the international shipping industry, HSH Nordbank revised its long-term loan loss provision plan in the third quarter and significantly increased loan loss provisions as at 30 September," the world's largest maritime finance provider said.

"The very difficult underlying conditions will continue to have a major influence on the trend in business over the further course of the year."

Citing an interview in the German-language Hamburger Abendblatt, the New York Times reports that the bank's CEO Constantin von Oesterreich, like other German bank executives, acknowledged that the finance system had a role in creating the current glut of ships on the market.

"I have to admit that grave mistakes were made in the years before 2009," he said.

HSH Nordbank said in August that the shipping industry faces "immense challenges" and that it expects "no swift improvement."

Ship & Bunker News Team
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