The sole shareholder of Finance Agency is the Federal government, represented by the Federal Ministry of Finance. At our headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, around 300 employees currently work at the interface between politics and the market. We work every day to fulfil the Federal government's mandate with a high level of market expertise.
The Finance Agency issues Federal securities, conducts money market and derivative transactions and thus manages the debt portfolio as well as the Federal government's capital market presence. It is our task to ensure the Federal government's budget and cash financing via the financial markets at all times and to optimise it under cost and risk aspects. On the market, we act exclusively in the name and for the account of the Federal government. We maintain the Federal government's benchmark position as a sovereign bond issuer in the euro area and continue to expand it.
Due to the Corona pandemic, the Federal government established the Economic Stabilisation Fund (ESF) in 2020 to strengthen the German real economy and placed it under the umbrella of the Finance Agency. From November 2022 to the end of 2023, it also served to finance measures to mitigate the consequences of the energy crisis. Since 2018, Finance Agency has also been managing the Financial Market Stabilisation Fund (FMS), which the Federal government established in 2008 to deal with the financial market crisis. We supervise the stabilisation measures granted by both funds. In the FMS, these include the investments in Commerzbank AG, Hypo Real Estate Holding GmbH and Portigon AG. In the ESF, stabilisation efforts included the investment in Deutsche Lufthansa AG and measures taken for TUI AG.
The Finance Agency also holds the sponsorship of the Federal Financial Market Stabilisation Agency (FMSA). The FMSA exercises legal supervision over the deconsolidated environment established under federal law: FMS-Wertmanagement (FMS-WM) and Erste Abwicklungsanstalt (EAA).
The activities of the Finance Agency are subject to parliamentary control regulated by law.
