Word: bankes
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Less than a year after the blockbuster deal, the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments agreed to inject $16 billion into an ailing Fortis, laid low by ongoing uncertainty in global credit markets. In return for the lifeline, each of the three Benelux governments took a 49% share in Fortis' banking units in their own countries. The part-nationalization of Belgium's biggest lender, which, with a worldwide staff of 85,000, is Europe's largest to be bailed out so far since the credit crisis began. It was a last resort, coming after all efforts to flog the bank...
...Fortis isn't alone among the banks in that once lauded consortium to fall on hard times; mighty RBS has since written off billions of dollars in sub-prime related losses, and even turned desperately to shareholders in June for some $20 billion in fresh capital. But if both lenders testify to the shaky health of many of the world's biggest banks, Santander, the third leg of the trio, seems to have gone from strength to strength. Indeed, while Fortis was receiving life support on Sunday, the Spanish bank was administering much needed first...
...billion dollar losses and complex financial assets, Santander's fortunes speak to the advantages of a simpler approach. Spain's largest bank "lends to their clients, takes deposits from their clients, and runs a network of branches," says Antonio Ramirez, analyst at investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in London. "It's quite simple, quite traditional." Focused on retail banking, with limited investment banking operations, and with a long-buoyant domestic market to lean on, Santander side-stepped the toxic assets caught up in the collapse of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market. Enjoying "good growth at home, they were never...
...here too, Spain's regulators have encouraged sensible behavior. For years, banks have been required to put aside cash to cover expected future losses, not actual ones. The Bank of Spain "thought that in the good times it makes sense to build a cushion for the bad times," says Ramirez. So while Spain enters a downturn "a significant portion of the potential deterioration [for banks] will be covered by these provisions." There are no guarantees, of course, for Santander or anyone else, in today's parlous international environment. But for now, at least, Spain offers a lesson in prudence through...
...That's not all bad, especially now that most of the endangered financial institutions are commercial banks. The Federal Government has clearly defined that authorities take them over, merge them out of existence or shut them down - whereas it had to make things up as it went along with investment banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and insurer AIG. That's why the demise of giant banks Washington Mutual and Wachovia, arranged over the past week by the FDIC, occurred in a far more orderly fashion than the non-bank meltdowns...