Westdeutsche Landesbank (lit. 'Western German Provincial Bank', abbreviated as WestLB) was a major German bank based in Düsseldorf, mainly controlled by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was created in 1969 by the merger of two predecessor entities respectively for the Rhineland and Westphalia. As a Landesbank, WestLB's core business was wholesale banking on behalf of the region's Sparkassen, but it expanded into numerous risky activities that ultimately led to its restructuring and dismantlement in the late 2000s. As of 30 June 2012, the residual operations of WestLB were transferred to a legacy non-bank entity, Portigon Financial Services AG.