WestLB has hired Pimco to run the vehicle it has created to ring-fence its â¬23bn ($36bn) structured debt portfolio. The high-profile contract comes barely a week after the US Federal Reserve picked BlackRock to manage $30bn (â¬19.1bn) of securities used as collateral for its bailout loan for Bear Stearns.
News of the mandate came as another German bank, BayernLB, today revealed that it wrote down â¬2.3bn from the value of its investments last year and a further â¬2bn in the first quarter this year as a result of the financial market crisis.
