July 30, 2007 (LPAC) -– Industriekreditbank (IKB), a bank predominantly engaged in funding mittelstand firms (middle-sized industrial companies) in Germany, got into serious trouble this morning, when rumors about high exposures on the U.S. real estate markets sent its stocks down 15.7 percent in Frankfurt minutes after the trading began there. At 10 a.m., Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau, the leading shareholder with 38 percent, instantly intervened with an emergency bridge loan, and part of the IKB management, including its CEO got fired.

Together with losses it had already sustained on Friday, July 27, IKB stocks had lost 18 percent, before trading of its stocks was called off in Frankfurt, at 10 a.m.

Details of what the US exposures of IKB were, were not made public, but coming after several days of alarmed headlines in the press here on expected international repercussions of the deepening US crisis, the case of IKB serves as a good illustration of the problem.