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ECONOMY

HRE bank gets €12 bln more in guarantees

The German state will provide another €12 billion ($15 billion) in guarantees to struggling Hypo Real Estate bank, bringing the total to €42 billion, HRE announced late Tuesday evening.

Published: 21 January 2009 08:35 CET
HRE bank gets €12 bln more in guarantees
Photo: DPA

HRE, the biggest German victim of the global financial crisis, has already had €50 billion in state aid and €30 billion in guarantees.

“The German Financial Markets Stabilisation Fund has extended its framework guarantee granted to Hypo Real Estate Group by an additional €12 billion, bringing the aggregate guarantee amount to €42 billion,” the bank said.

The bank said it “can use the additional guarantees … to collateralise debt securities to be issued, which must be due for repayment by June 12, 2009 at the latest.”

HRE was a frontline casualty when the high risk US subprime mortgage market collapsed, putting the global financial system under unprecedented stress. Even with the huge aid given has not been enough to get HRE back on its feet.

A spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said last week the government could buy one third or more of the troubled property lender. The government has already partially nationalised the second biggest German bank, Commerzbank.

In December, HRE said it would slash its workforce by almost half in three years, part of a series of draconian moves to save it from bankruptcy. HRE posted a net loss of €3.1 billion in the third quarter of 2008 and said it expects additional losses in its fourth quarter and annual results.

Berlin has set up a banking sector rescue package that is to provide up to €80 billion in cash injections and €400 billion in loan guarantees to prevent a collapse of the financial sector.

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ECONOMY

How is Denmark’s economy handling inflation and rate rises?

Denmark's economy is now expected to avoid a recession in the coming years, with fewer people losing their jobs than expected, despite high levels of inflation and rising interest rates, The Danish Economic Council has said in a new report.

Published: 30 May 2023 15:46 CEST
How is Denmark's economy handling inflation and rate rises?

The council, led by four university economics professors commonly referred to as “the wise men” or vismænd in Denmark, gave a much rosier picture of Denmark’s economy in its spring report, published on Tuesday, than it did in its autumn report last year. 

“We, like many others, are surprised by how employment continues to rise despite inflation and higher interest rates,” the chair or ‘chief wise man’,  Carl-Johan Dalgaard, said in a press release.

“A significant drop in energy prices and a very positive development in exports mean that things have gone better than feared, and as it looks now, the slowdown will therefore be more subdued than we estimated in the autumn.”

In the English summary of its report, the council noted that in the autumn, market expectations were that energy prices would remain at a high level, with “a real concern for energy supply shortages in the winter of 2022/23”.

That the slowdown has been more subdued, it continued was largely due to a significant drop in energy prices compared to the levels seen in late summer 2022, and compared to the market expectations for 2023.  

The council now expects Denmark’s GDP growth to slow to 1 percent in 2023 rather than for the economy to shrink by 0.2 percent, as it predicted in the autumn. 

In 2024, it expects the growth rate to remain the same as in 2003, with another year of 1 percent GDP growth. In its autumn report it expected weaker growth of 0.6 percent in 2024.

What is the outlook for employment? 

In the autumn, the expert group estimated that employment in Denmark would decrease by 100,000 people towards the end of the 2023, with employment in 2024  about 1 percent below the estimated structural level. 

Now, instead, it expects employment will fall by just 50,000 people by 2025.

What does the expert group’s outlook mean for interest rates and government spending? 

Denmark’s finance minister Nikolai Wammen came in for some gentle criticism, with the experts judging that “the 2023 Finance Act, which was adopted in May, should have been tighter”.  The current government’s fiscal policy, it concludes “has not contributed to countering domestic inflationary pressures”. 

The experts expect inflation to stay above 2 percent in 2023 and 2024 and not to fall below 2 percent until 2025. 

If the government decides to follow the council’s advice, the budget in 2024 will have to be at least as tight, if not tighter than that of 2023. 

“Fiscal policy in 2024 should not contribute to increasing demand pressure, rather the opposite,” they write. 

The council also questioned the evidence justifying abolishing the Great Prayer Day holiday, which Denmark’s government has claimed will permanently increase the labour supply by 8,500 full time workers. 

“The council assumes that the abolition of Great Prayer Day will have a short-term positive effect on the labour supply, while there is no evidence of a long-term effect.” 

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