The big banks are crashing and burning.
Link: US Banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch Reveal Fresh $15 Billion Loss | Times of London
CITIGROUP and Merrill Lynch will heap further pain on Wall Street this week as they reveal additional sub-prime write-downs totalling $15 billion or more.
In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms.
Huge exposure to American mortgages is expected to result in Citi taking a $10 billion hit to its accounts, dragging the bank to a first-quarter loss of almost $3 billion. Some analysts believe Citi’s write-downs could stretch to as much as $12 billion.
Merrill will suffer $5 billion of write-downs, analysts say, which would push the bank $2.7 billion into the red. ...
... The new rash of Wall Street losses and write-downs come in addition to the billions that have already been recorded.
The world’s biggest banks have suffered losses and write-downs totalling almost $250 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to analysts. Last week the IMF shocked markets by saying that global losses from the credit crisis could rise to $945 billion.
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