NRW.Bank chief to take helm at Germany's KfW -paper

BERLIN (Reuters) - NRW.Bank chief Ulrich Schroeder is to take over at German state development bank KfW [KFW.UL], which controls subprime casualty IKB (IKBG.DE), business daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.

NRW.Bank is the development bank for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. Schroeder has been a member of NRW.Bank's managing board since it was established in August 2002.

Citing KfW supervisory board sources, Handelsblatt reported that Schroeder had the backing of both Economy Minister Michael Glos and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck. Glos heads KfW's supervisory board.

An Economy Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the report. There was no immediate comment from the Finance Ministry.

Ingrid Matthaeus-Maier quit as KfW chief earlier this month after facing criticism over the handling of the crisis at IKB, Germany's most high-profile casualty of the global financial markets crisis.

IKB has been rescued three times at a cost of more than 8 billion euros ($12.46 billion), mostly with the help of government-owned KfW.

Steinbrueck, who helped organise the IKB rescue deals, had said the new KfW chief would have to be an experienced banker and not a political nominee -- a veiled reference to party colleague Matthaeus-Maier, who was a career politician before she joined the KfW management board in 1999.

(Writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Will Waterman)