The bank, a Dublin-based public limited company incorporated under Irish law, has added its high-profile name to the large international business community already using Hong Kong as its preferred base in Asia.

 "With half of the world's population living within five hours' flight from Hong Kong, the need for public sector and infrastructure financing will remain high for the foreseeable future," said DePfa's chairman and CEO Gerhard Bruckermann in an interview with the Financial Times.

The bank has a network of subsidiaries and branch offices across many European countries, as well as the US and Japan. It offers financial products and services in three broad categories: budget financing for local and central governmental bodies; investment banking solutions for public sector authorities; and the funding of public infrastructure projects, which the bank sees as its principal focus in Asia.
 
Hong Kong an `ideal base'

Under the leadership of its Special Finance Unit in Dublin, which is responsible for all the bank's project and structured finance services, DePfa provides long-term limited recourse lending and financial advisory services in a number of areas. These include transport infrastructure and environmental facilities, such as water and waste-to-energy projects, as well as the many other areas of public infrastructure that are increasingly being financed worldwide through Public Private Partnerships - among them hospitals, prisons, schools and government offices.

While the bank currently has a number of Asian central banks on its client list, the majority of its assets and infrastructure funding is in Europe. It is hoped that the new Hong Kong office will provide an ideal base for developing a richer and more diversified Asian business.

Founded by the Prussian government in 1922 as a non-profit-making mortgage credit institution, DePfa has weathered some of the most tumultuous years in European history, including hyper-inflation, World War II and the expropriation of some 50 per cent of its assets following the division of Germany into east and west in 1945. The bank, which finally became a privatised company in 1990, currently has assets valued at some US$176 billion, making it the 60th-largest in the world, according to American Banker.

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