– Germany €55bn richer after error at Hypo ‘bad bank’ (Financial Times):
Germany is better off to the tune of €55.5bn after a government-backed “bad bank” set up to deal with the problem assets of Hypo Real Estate, a nationalised mortgage lender, admitted a mistake in its accounting.
Correcting the error reduces Germany’s national debt by 2.6 percentage points to 81.1 per cent of gross domestic product but is embarrassing for the government, which is responsible for winding up HRE.
– Germany finds 55 billion euro after accountancy error (Reuters):
Germany is 55.5 billion euros ($78.7 billion) richer than it thought due to an accountancy error at the bad bank of nationalized mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the finance ministry said.
Europe’s largest economy now expects its ratio of debt to gross domestic product to be 81.1 percent for 2011, 2.6 percentage points less than previously forecast, it said.