Drowning by the shore

The largest US banks may not have time to take advantage of the state’s assistance to the main events of the week in the financial market should be the final adoption of the US Ministry of Finance and the US Federal Reserve on the allocation of $ 700 billion, as well as clarifying the fate of one of the largest American banks in Wachovia.

Taking measures aimed at stabilizing the situation in financial markets may take place today. In any case, on the night of Saturday to Sunday, the speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi announced that the senators and representatives of the Ministry of Finance had reached a compromise about the final text of the document.

Thus, the chances of adopting a plan to save a financial system providing for record costs of the budget for the purchase of problem assets have increased sharply among banks.

In addition, at the end of last week, iconic bankruptcy actually took place. In the USA, Bank Washington Mutual ruined. His ruin became the largest bankruptcy bankruptcy in the country's history. The bank’s assets are $ 309 billion. The bank took second place in terms of the amount of mortgage loans issued with the floating rate after the Wachovia bank and had the largest deposit base in the United States for $ 188 billion, which will be extended by creditors, amount to $ 8 billion of debt and $ 32 billion of assets. Despite the relatively minor debt obligations to the creditors, the decision to close became the need after the bank’s customers withdrew $ 16.7 billion from its accounts. The main problems of the bank were caused by its mortgage assets with $ 122 billion and significantly depreciated after the start of the crisis. As a result, JP Morgan Chase purchased a network of Washington Mutual branches along with its deposits for $ 1.9 billion. Now it is the largest savings bank in the United States, having deposits of $ 800 billion. Immediately after the purchase of JP Morgan Chase, he announced the write -off of Washington Mutual assets for $ 31 billion. It is worth noting that the bankruptcy of Washington Mutal has already become 13th for this year. Thus, the 2002 anti -record was blocked, when 12 American banks were liquidated.

Now the USA has sharply intensified that the fate of Washington Mutal is waiting for another savings pillar - Wachovia.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a group of investors in Citigroup, Wells Fargo & Co and Banco Santander SA are negotiating with him about his purchase. Investors have already made attempts to acquire Washington Mutual, however, they lost to JP Morgan Chase in the struggle. However, the purchase of Wachovia, estimated at $ 21.4 billion, can be postponed, since the capitalization of the bank continues to fall rapidly. On Friday, the bank shares sank by 27%, increasing the chances of another bankruptcy in the financial sector.

In turn, the UK is also likely to remain without Bradford & Bingley, the largest bank of the country that provides loans for homeowners. As the parliamentary secretary Jeff Hong said yesterday, the government will take all measures to defend Bradford & Bingley, and representatives of the bank confirmed that they are negotiating with the regulator. The reason for the performance of the parliamentarian was the BBC message that the bank will be nationalized by the government. The total amount of loans issued by the bank is $ 77 billion, and almost half of them fall on loans to tenants, a significant part of which are not reliable borrowers. If the decision to transition Bradford & Bingley will nevertheless be adopted for public administration, this will be the third case of active state intervention in order to prevent bankruptcy of banks from the beginning of the year. In February, Northern Rock was nationalized, the first to suffer from the collapse in the mortgage market. Then, not without the help of the state, HBOS was sold, which also had a significant share of assets in the mortgage market.

09/28/2008 / Konstantin Tikhonov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 184 dated 09/29/2008.