Hypo to suffer heavy losses
Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the German state-owned lender, is set to lose more than €2bn (£1.7bn) over the next 18 months, sources said yesterday. The specialist property lender said last week that it expected to fall to a loss of “at least hundreds of millions of euros” in the second quarter, adding that it was unlikely to make a profit before 2011. And the head of the bank’s supervisory board, Michael Endres, said yesterday that he expected “large asset depreciations” in the quarter. HRE, which will unveil its quarterly results on 7 August, recorded a net loss of €382m in the first quarter, following last year’s full year loss of €5.4bn.