In response to the accusations made by two members of the Deutsche Bundestag (lower house of parliament), Mr Axel Troost and Mr Volker Wissing, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the Deutsche Bundesbank would like to comment as follows.

The President of BaFin, Jochen Sanio, and the President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Professor Axel Weber, note with astonishment the accusations that have been levelled by two Bundestag MPs, Mr Axel Troost and Mr Volker Wissing. Mr Troost’s assertion that, at the behest of Mr Sanio and Professor Weber, shareholders and the public have been deceived and misled is totally unfounded and legally untenable.

On the weekend of the first Hypo Real Estate (HRE) rescue operation (27/28 September 2008), BaFin and the Bundesbank were working on the assumption that HRE had a net liquidity requirement up to the end of 2008 of around €35 billion, which could only be met by outside assistance. This amount, which formed the basis for all negotiations throughout the weekend in question, was based on figures provided by HRE's board of directors and on stress assumptions relating to the group’s severe refinancing problems, which were the result of the extreme market conditions prevailing at that time (ie the collapse of the international money markets). Following this rescue operation, the joint press release issued by Bafin and the Bundesbank on Monday 29 September 2008, based on the information which was available at that time to the Presidents of BaFin and the Bundesbank, truthfully noted that the HRE had been granted a credit facility which should prove sufficient for closing the calculated net liquidity gap.

This outcome of the rescue operation is likewise mirrored in the ad hoc announcement of Hypo Real Estate Holding AG of 29 September 2008, which stated that the HRE group had been provided with a short-term and medium-term credit facility in a sufficient amount, ie that the size of the credit lines provided would suffice to cover the group’s refinancing needs for the foreseeable future.