Bid of €350m received for beleaguered Depfa Bank

Hypo Real Estate Holding, the German lender that received a government bailout, drew offers of as much as €350 million for Dublin-based Depfa Bank. A preferred bidder could be selected within four weeks.

J.C. Flowers, Apollo Global Management and a group led by Third Point each made an offer, and Blackstone Group filed a joint bid with Och-Ziff Capital Management Group it is understood.

"We have received bids which we are evaluating and I can't comment any further," Walter Allwicher, a spokesman for Hypo Real Estate, said by phone. Hypo Real Estate, based in Munich, received European Union approval for the bailout in 2011 as Germany injected €10 billion to save the company from collapse. As part of the restructuring, Hypo Real Estate chief executive officer Manuela Better has to sell the Depfa unit, a provider of public-sector finance, by the end of 2014.

Bids submitted by the January 28th deadline ranged from €250 million to €350 million, it is understood.

Depfa had total core assets of €51 billion and a core tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, of 20 per cent at the end of the first half of 2013, according to Hypo Real Estate.

Charles Zehren, a spokesman for Apollo at Rubenstein Associates declined to comment. J.C. Flowers declined to comment on its involvement in the process in an e- mailed response to questions. Elissa Doyle of Third Point, Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Och-Ziff at Sard Verbinnen and Co., Peter Rose, a spokesman for Blackstone, and Gruebel also declined to comment.

Bloomberg