Helaba is an abbreviation for the State Bank of Hesse-Thuringia. It is a commercial bank with its core area in the German states of Hesse and Thuringia. It provides financial services to companies, banks, institutional investors and the public sector in Germany and internationally. At the same time, it is the central clearing authority and service provider for 40% of German savings banks. Helaba is an institution incorporated under public law. The bank has about 6,300 employees, has two headquarters in Frankfurt and Erfurt, branches in Düsseldorf and Kassel, and offices in Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and Münster. On an international level, Helaba operates through branches and representative offices in Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Moscow, Shanghai and Singapore. Frankfurter Sparkasse, a leading retail bank in the Rhine-Main region, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Helaba. The Helaba Group also includes online banking 1822direkt, LBS Hessen-Thüringen and WIBank. The latter carries out development programmes for the state of Hesse. Other subsidiaries of Helaba include Helaba Invest Kapitalanlagegesellschaft, Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft and OFB Group (real estate development).
Since the European banking regulation came into force at the end of 2014, Helaba has been designated as an important institution and is therefore directly supervised by the European Central Bank.
BUSINESS ACTIVITIES
The "Wholesale Client Business" business area includes the provision of financial services to corporations, banks and institutional investors. In the "Private Client and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) " business area, Helaba, through its S-Group Bank, provides services to S-Group Savings Banks in the Länder of Hesse, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg. Within the framework of the "Public Development and Infrastructure Business", Helaba provides services to development support programs in Hesse and participates in development agencies and agencies in Hesse and Thuringia. In addition, GWH, one of the largest housing companies in Hesse, is also part of Helaba.
Main Tower Frankfurt
History
On June 1, 1953, the Hessische Landesbank Girozentrale was formed by the merger of Hessische Landesbank Darmstadt Girozentrale (founded in 1940), Nassauische Landesbank Wiesbaden (founded in 1940) and Landeskreditkasse zu Kassel (founded in 1832). In the 1970s, financial scandals related to Tibor Rosenbaum left Hessische Landesbank in serious trouble. On July 1, 1992, the state treaty between Hesse and Thuringia on the union of the savings bank organizations of the two federal states led to the establishment of the Union State Bank. As such, it is the first Landesbank to operate outside the borders of a single federal state. In 2005, Helaba acquired Frankfurter Sparkasse, thus moving further into the private client business. It already operates from the Kassel office through its Darmstadt branch and Landeskreditkasse zu Kassel in Kassel.
In 2007, the ministers and governors of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, Jürgen Rüttgers and Roland Koch, tentatively agreed to approve the merger of their respective state-owned banks Helaba and WestLB; however, after years of losses and controversy, WestLB was finally dissolved in 2012. During his tenure, CEO Hans-Dieter Brenner later advocated for merging Helaba with DekaBank, the fund manager of the country's savings bank.
In 2014, Helaba formed a joint venture with US banking group BNY Mellon and the country's 25 largest savings banks to help corporate clients expand their foreign trade with Asia. In late 2018, it acquired Dexia Kladialbank Deutschland, the German branch of Franco-Belgian bank Dexia, for 352 million euros (398 million dollars).
Main articles: 2011 European Union bank stress testing and 2016 European Union bank stress testing
In July 2011, it was reported that Helaba will withdraw from European Union bank stress testing to avoid public failure
Governance
Legal form and owner
Helaba has legal capacity as an institution established under public law. The owners and guarantors of Hesse-Thuringia State Bank are Hesse-Thuringia Savings Bank and the State of Thuringia (85%), the Federal State of Hesse-Thuringia (10%) and the Free State of Thuringia (5%). The governing bodies of the bank are the General Assembly of Owners, the Supervisory Board and the Committee of Managing Directors. The Chief Executive Officer of Hesse-Thuringia State Bank is Hans-Dieter Brenner.
Board of Directors
- Thomas Gross
- Dr. Detlef Hosemann
- Hans-Dieter Kemmler
- Frank Nickel
- Christian Rhino
- Christian Schmidt
Former Chairperson of the Board
<>Headquarters
The main tower was laid in October 1996. Three years later, the bank moved into the building. At 200 meters high, it is the fourth tallest skyscraper in Frankfurt. Earlier, the bank's headquarters were in an adjoining building, now known as the Garden House.
Controversies
In 2023, the ECB fined Helaba 6.83 million euros ($7.29 million) for "consciously" misrepresenting its risk exposure to volatile financial marekts during the COVID-19 pandemic, so it needed less capital; at the time, it was the second-largest tax the ECB has imposed since it took over supervision of the eurozone's largest bank in 2014
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