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’Don’t forget the advisers
Alternative title: The bull that got away.
Everyone else has got it in the neck for the failure of RBS, so it’s only right that we remember those who masterminded the disastrous acquisition of ABN Amro.
Regulating 2000s RBS… with 2010s rules
…we don’t like carrying more capital than we need to. You’ve heard me before on the subject of building up war chests and carrying; that’s not the way we would wish to operate at all.
– Fred the Shred on an investor conference call,
[Something for the weekend] The SGP without stability or growth
Ah, the Stability and Growth Pact. You remember. Joining the SGP, members promised fiscal restraint, and in return were allowed to junk their soggy old currencies for a Deutschemark with a suntan. They all promised to keep the gap between revenue and spending to below 3 per cent of GDP,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Santander UK posts £1.14bn trading profit before tax down 2 per cent on 2010 — statement and statement.
- ABN Amro reports €864m net profit in first half,
Presenting RBS’s toxic assets
As you may have read, HM Treasury has released full details of the toxic RBS assets being guaranteed under the Asset Protection Scheme.
Annex A of the 100 page report (which was quietly put up on the HM Treasury website on Monday) provides the full breakdown of the £282bn assets being insured.
Deutsche agrees deal on ABN assets
Deutsche Bank has reached preliminary terms with the Dutch government to buy commercial banking assets from ABN Amro, removing a potential obstacle imposed by Brussels on plans to restructure the nationalised Dutch bank.
Presenting Emo
Or the Emotion Mirroring System for Online Traders.
This stylish bracelet and bowl are the fruits of a joint venture between Dutch electronics group Philips and ABN Amro, and were designed to help online traders make better decisions.Here’s how the system works: The Emobowl ™ acts as an emotion mirror,
Presenting the Dutch RMBS Niet-oproep
The non-call risk which has haunted hybrid bonds, or subordinated debt, in recent months appears to have spread — all the way to Dutch RMBS.
Recall that a number of hybrid bonds have been downgraded recently,
Dutch eye action on Fortis, ABN
The Dutch state is pursuing parallel tracks to sell the commercial banking arms of either ABN Amro or Fortis Bank Nederland in an effort to satisfy EU competition regulators that a merger between the two state-owned banks can proceed.
Hybrid debt attack – for real, from Fitch
Woosh. That is the sound of a hybrid debt bomb being dropped on the European market, courtesy of ratings agency Fitch:
FITCH DOWNGRADES LLOYDS, RBS, ING, OTHER EU BANKS’ HYBRIDS ON INCREASED RISK OF COUPON DEFERRAL
Fitch Ratings-London-20 August 2009:
RBS needs five years to get over ABN fallout
Royal Bank of Scotland will take at least three to five years to recover after the disastrous acquisition of ABN Amro assets that were instrumental in damaging its balance sheet, chief executive Stephen Hester said at the bank’s annual meeting on Friday.
Mammon anonymous at the Evening Standard
He’s a man who has been heavily involved in disastrous banking mergers.
Bespectacled, married, in his late 40s and drives a Maserati.
[One unhappy client] now refers to him as the ELF, which does not stand for Erudite Likeable Fellow.
Fred Van Shred?
Amsterdam: the most civilised city in the world, some might say. Famously permissive (although no tobacco allowed in those reefers these days) and offering a tight social safety net for the disadvantaged.
CDS update: Markets buoyant, despite bad news
This CDS report was written by Markit’s Gavan Nolan
It is not often that a company reporting a £24.1 billion net loss for a year – a UK record – would be regarded as a cause for celebration. But these are extraordinary times,
RBS admits ABN buy ‘a mistake’
The former bosses of RBS, one of the UK’s highest profile banking casualties, admitted to a parliamentary inquiry into the near-collapse of the bank and HBOS that RBS’s acquisition of Dutch rival ABN Amro at the height of the boom in financial markets “a bad mistake”.
ABN eyes buy-back from RBS
ABN Amro, the nationalised Dutch bank, has held exploratory talks with Royal Bank of Scotland on buying back some of its former businesses as the Dutch government tries to recreate a viable third large Dutch bank. Wouter Bos,
Perils of stock punditry, Hyderabad edition
It has not been a good start to 2009 for one unlucky analyst at ABN Amro India. On Wednesday morning, the hapless number cruncher decided to upgrade his rating on Satyam Computer to “buy”. Hours later,
What $100bn buys today
A little over a year ago, Nationalised Westminster Bank Royal Bank of Scotland and friends splashed out $100bn on a Dutch bank called ABN Amro.
Just look what it could buy now.
Citibank $22.5bn,
Weekend catch-up: ABN, HBOS, Target, Woolies
In case you missed these stories:
Dutch unveil revival plans for ABN Amro
The Dutch government on Friday announced plans for a revival of a large part of ABN Amro, the Dutch bank acquired and broken up by an RBS-led consortium last year.
Weekend catch-up
In case you missed these developments:
US regulators close Silver State Bank
US regulators closed Silver State Bank on Friday, the 11th US bank to fail this year as the struggling economy and falling home prices take their toll on financial institutions.
Snap news
The latest on Thursday,
- Fortis to sell ABN Amro Teda fund share to Old Mutual – statement
- Persimmon reports H1 pretax profits at £100.9m, vs £281.1m, 5p dividend vs 18.5p – statement
- Amlin
ABN arm secures €1bn financing
ABN Amro’s former private equity arm has won a new lease of life by raising almost €1bn ($1.5bn) from the Dutch lender’s three new owners and a Goldman Sachs-led consortium that is buying ABN’s old buy-out portfolio.
CBA eyes ABN Amro unit as NAB walks
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s largest bank, is in talks with Royal Bank of Scotland to buy ABN Amro’s Australian and New Zealand unit, a day after National Australia Bank ended talks on a potential deal,
Hedge fund sues RBS for withdrawal
Royal Bank of Scotland is embroiled in a multi-million pound lawsuit after reversing a €250m ($394m) investment by ABN Amro in a London hedge fund shortly after its takeover of the Dutch bank. Merebis Capital Management has filed a case in London’s High Court,
In praise of Santander
Santander is in a comfortable position.
Like HSBC, it is cushioned by a huge consumer banking business. Like HSBC, Santander has avoided painful writedowns on the back of forced deleveraging at the higher-ends of the structured finance foodchain.
RBS sinks on Caz downgrade
Sir Fred Goodwin must be mighty relieved that Royal Bank of Scotland grasped the rights issue nettle when it did. Admidst the wreckage of the UK banking sector he now enjoys clear first mover advantage.
Idiot capital raising, Fortis edition
Barclays didn’t buy ABN Amro. Its shareprice and capital ratios fell to the point where a rights issue become necessary. Fortis did buy ABN Amro (part of it anyway). And like Barclays, it needs money.
It’s not just a €1.5bn equity capital raising either,
Aviva to exit ABN Amro venture
Aviva, the UK’s biggest insurer, is in talks to sell its 51% stake in a Dutch distribution joint venture with ABN Amro to Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch financial services group. The move was prompted by the €71bn acquisition of ABN by a consortium including Royal Bank of Scotland,
[CPDO rating error] FT Alphaville exclusive: Moody’s error gave top ratings to debt products
Moody’s awarded incorrect triple A ratings to billions of dollars worth of a type of complex debt product due to a bug in its computer models, an Financial Times investigation has discovered.
Internal Moody’s documents seen by the FT show that some senior staff within the credit agency knew early in 2007 that products rated the previous year had received top-notch triple A ratings and that,