In the first six month of the current fiscal, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and BayernLB have slashed their overseas exposure in North America, while reducing their non-domestic commitments in Western Europe, including in so-called "peripheral" eurozone nations, as reported by the Financial Times.
During the financial crisis of 2008, the banks sought for state aid and had to offload their overseas non-core businesses.
In order to meet an EU-imposed goal to reduce its balance sheet and repay €5bn of aid to the Bavarian state government by 2019, LBBW had agreed 2,300 voluntary redundancies from a planned 2,500 job cuts.
According to the data published by BayernLB, its gross credit risk in North America slumped by €3.1bn in the first six months of the year, following a €3.8bn decline in 2011, while reducing its exposure to Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland by €1.5bn, or 14% during the first six months.
LBBW reported that its net credit exposure to North America declined from 6.4% of total exposure at the end of 2011 to just 4.8%.
