BERLIN (Reuters) � Organizers of an event where the head of Germany's bank rescue fund was reported as saying the country's lenders needed 200 billion euros ($261.7 billion) in fresh capital said the report was wrong and that no such sum had been named.
Weekly magazine Euro am Sonntag reported that Hannes Rehm, head of the Soffin bank rescue fund, had told an event hosted by Dresden-based asset management firm Damm-Rumpf-Hering Vermoegensverwaltung that German lenders needed more money.
"German banks need 200 billion euros in additional capital," the magazine reported Rehm as saying.
Asked about the comment, Rocco Damm, one of the firm's managing directors, told Reuters on Sunday he had double-checked with his two business partners and three others present at the event, and that all agreed Rehm had not mentioned the sum.
"All I can say as one of the organizers is that this sentence was not said," he said. "Definitely not."
Damm said there had been talk about a figure of 50 billion euros, which, according to media reports, Germany's 10 biggest banks may need to raise to comply with tougher new rules for the financial sector known as Basel III.
A spokeswoman for Rehm, who could not be reached, declined to comment on the report.
Gerhard Stratthaus, another member of Soffin's three-strong management committee, said that he had not been present in Dresden but that the 200 billion euros appeared very high and had not been mentioned officially by the fund.
"I'm not familiar with this figure," he told Reuters.
Separately, Daniel Volk, a member of the ruling Free Democrats (FDP) who sits on the Bundestag lower house of parliament's finance committee, said that to his knowledge the sum reported by Euro am Sonntag had not been requested by banks.
"Ultimately is it's about whether applications for capital injections have been submitted to Soffin," he told Reuters. "I'm not aware of any such applications."
($1=.7641 Euro)
(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Hans Peters)
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