M Rothschild & Sons with advising it on options for its restructuring, including the sale of Deutsche Hypothekenbank. By the end of 2017, Aareal Bank and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) were expected to hand in final offers for Deutsche Hypo, with the bids valuing the bank at more than 0.7 times its book value of about 700 million euros. That year, the bank turned a small profit. In January 2018, NORD/LB decided not to sell after all. Instead, it sold the majority of its asset management arm to M. M. Warburg & Co. Also, several banks and investment firms – Advent International, Apollo Global Management, Centerbridge Partners, Cerberus Capital Management, Christofferson, Robb & Company, Commerzbank and Helaba – submitted bids for a stake in the bank and a 3.5 billion euro ($3.98 billion) capital injection. Eventually, Cerberus and Centerbrigde submitted a joint offer, suggesting to each acquire a 24.9 per cent stake. Helaba ended up not handing in a final offer and was therefore no longer part of the formal auction process, but talks between NORD/LB and Helaba stakeholders continued throughout the bidding process on whether a public-sector solution could be found. Meanwhile, in October 2018, NORD/LB scored worst among German lenders in the European Banking Authority's EU-wide stress tests. It also incurred a record loss of more than 2 billion euros. Under a last-minute 3.6 billion euros rescue plan for NORD/LB presented in early 2019, the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV) provided about 1.2 billion euros in fresh equity. Lower Saxony’s state government – then led by Minister-President Stephan Weil − provided another 1.5 billion euros in cash plus an unspecified amount of non-cash balance sheet support needed to close a 3.5 billion euros equity shortfall at the bank. The state of Saxony-Anhalt agreed to contribute 198 million euros. In addition, Lower Saxony guaranteed some loans which brought NORD/LB further capital relief of 800 million euros. In recent years, NORD/LB has developed a range of partners to bundle loan portfolios and place them with investors, working with insurers Talanx and ERGO Group, Bankhaus Lampe and Bavarian pension fund Bayerische Versorgungskammer (BVK). Its lending business runs on a joint IT platform with BayernLB. Assets NORD/LB holds shares in various subsidiaries, including the following: Braunschweigische Landessparkasse Bremer Landesbank (100%) Caplantic GmbH (45%) Deutsche Hypothekenbank (100%) KreditServices Nord (100%) NORD/LB Asset Management (100%) Norddeutsche Facility Management GmbH (100%) LBS Norddeutsche Landesbausparkasse Berlin-Hannover (44%)