April, 2009
Deutsche Bank back in black
Deutsche Bank on Tuesday said it bounced back into profit in the 2009 first quarter after a disastrous last quarter of 2008. Better trading for many of Deutsche’s key debt businesses helped it lift net income to €1.2bn ($1.5bn),
BBVA Q1 profits fall 14%
BBVA, Spain’s second-biggest bank, on Tuesday reported a 14.2% year-on-year decline in Q1 net profits, to €1.24bn ($1.6bn), as asset writedowns and bad loan provisions offset improved net interest income.
ANZ H1 profit falls 28%
ANZ, Australia’s fourth-largest lender, said on Wednesday that profit fell 28% in the first half as bad debts almost doubled, reports Bloomberg. The stock slumped nearly 5%, the most in more than two months,
Australia’s NAB sees profits slide
National Australia Bank set the scene for Australia’s bank reporting season on Tuesday, announcing a large increase in bad debt charges and warning that market conditions had worsened. Australia’s largest lender said net profits slipped 1% to A$2.6bn in the six months ended March,
UK’s DSG plans £300m cash call
DSG International, owner of the Currys and PC World retail chains, is poised to raise about £300m after sounding out shareholders on a rights issue and placing, which could come as early as this week.
JJB agrees unusual restructuring
JJB Sports has become the first listed UK company to be saved from administration by agreeing a debt restructuring with creditors using a rarely successful insolvency process. Creditors of JJB Sports overwhelmingly supported the revised payment scheme that uses a company voluntary arrangement,
Corus steel deal in jeopardy
Nearly 2,000 jobs at Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus’s plant on Teesside in north-east England were in jeopardy Tuesday night after it emerged that a deal to sell the plant to an Italian company was in danger of collapse. Corus,
Overnight markets: Fearful
Japanese markets were closed but elsewhere in Asia, stocks rose for the first time in three days on signs of improved earnings in the region. Futures on the S&P500 index added 0.3% after the gauge lost 0.3% on Tuesday as concerns that banks need more capital and the swine-flu outbreak will thwart an economic recovery offset a jump in consumer confidence.
CalPERS calls out Ken
The California Public Employees Retirement Systems, or CalPERS, has Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis in its sights after Merrill Lynch-gate.
Here’s their press release:
CalPERS Votes Against Bank of America Board of Directors – Cites Losses;
Bank of America needs to raise $60-70bn
That’s the view of FBR Capital Markets and it is somewhat at odds with reports that claim Bank of America was facing a capital shortfall of just $1bn or so based on the early results of the US banking stress tests.
Blogonomics, or the economics of writing for “free”
Mark Penn, chief strategist of the Clinton Campaign, sparked an uproar in the blogosphere last week when he asserted the following in the pages of the Wall Street Journal:
In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers.
Shameless appeal to readers
The FT Alphaville team are very proud to have been nominated for a Webby – generally regarded as the most prestigious awards across the internet.
But we need your help.
Each category has a judges’ award and also a People’s Voice award,
Derivatives for make glorious benefit BTA bank… less so Morgan Stanley
MOSCOW, April 28 (Reuters) – Kazakh bank BTA BTAS.KZ said on Tuesday its new state-appointed management had uncovered a “speculative derivatives transaction” that may have been overstated on its balance sheet.
Quote du jour, touché Trichet
From a speech by ECB President Jean Claude Trichet (H/T Alea).
Related links:
The financial crisis and the ECB’s response so far – Jean-Claude Trichet speech
QE and the ECB? – FT Alphaville
Political fat tails
Probability distributions didn’t do a great job predicting financial meltdown, and we’re not sure they’ll be much better at predicting general events. But, since it’s not far-fetched to think that political extremes can follow economic ones,
Crystal Amber takes 13 per cent stake in JJB
Not long after JJB creditors and landlords voted in favour of the CVA yesterday, this appeared on RNS:
While it’s not yet clear what tack Crystal Amber are planning to take, we can assume it will be an activist one.
FICO those CDOs
Rortybomb has some fascinating data points on FICO scores, RMBS, CDOs and subprime lending.
FICO scores, which range from 300 to 850 and are provided by Fair Isaac Corp, were a key feature in the boom of subprime lending.
And the results of the US bank stress test are…
We have had the methodology (sort of), now we are starting to get some early leaks results from the US bank stress tests.
And on the face of it they do not look so good for either Bank of America or Citigroup.
CDS report: the worries mount up
The screens of European credit derivatives traders were splashed with red on Tuesday, with indices showing deteriorating conditions across the board.
The European iTraxx main index of mostly investment grade borrowers’ CDS - contracts which provide a form of insurance against default – moved from a 151.94 basis points close on Monday to as wide as 154.42bps during morning trade.
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville Tuesday morning,
- Financial crises as epidemics.
- The outbreak of swine flu couldn’t have come at a worse time for Mexico.
- Lehman’s shameless sales to “vulnerable investors”
How the failure of Lehman Bros is like SARS, and swine flu
It’s not great timing, given the the outbreak of swine flu, but it is, nevertheless, the theme of the latest publication from the Bank of England.
From a transcript of a speech (with charts) by Andrew Haldane,
Markets live transcript 28 Apr 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:09 on 28 Apr 2009. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy, FT (PM) Neil Hume, FT (NH) PM:Hll thr – wlcm to Mrkts Lv PM:AV’s mrkts cht.
Aer Lingus needs a pot of cash
Irish carrier Aer Lingus dropped a real downer of a first-quarter trading statement into the markets this morning.
Revenue dropped 16 per cent in the first three months of 2009, passenger numbers fell 6.5 per cent and yields,
Lehman notes for the mentally ill — plumbing the depths
One might think there really isn’t anything left that could shock anyone after all the revelations stemming from the global financial crisis – not just about the packaging and sale of toxic assets but more broadly,
Mexic-oh no
The outbreak of swine flu couldn’t have come at a worse time for Mexico, really.
The government has been struggling to revive the country’s economy, trying to reduce interest rates while fighting inflation and a weakening local currency.
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Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Epidemics — this time could be different.
- Swine flu: The video(s).
- Are we overbought?
- Krugman: Bully is the new shrill.
- Gold and the dollar — more than you wanted to know.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
The end of the Thatcher era
The FT’s Gideon Rachman writes: The economic cataclysms and policy reversals of recent months suggest that the Thatcher era surely must be over,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Deutsche Bank posts Q1 net revenue of €7.2bn — statement.
- Friends Provident sales down 40 per cent in Q1 — statement.
- St. James’s Place funds under management down 6 per cent to £15.3bn YTD — statement.
Italy seizes $300m from four banks
Italian authorities have seized about $300m in assets of four global banks, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Depfa, whose officials have been accused of fraud, reports the NYT. Italian police seized commercial properties,