The only remaining decent Western bank is.. Española!
Mosquito Bravo
likely sink with the USA.
¡Gibraltareños (Ingleses, Llanitos y Monos no)!
¡No jodais! Teneis que dejar de hablar inglés en Gibraltar. Y no dejar que
nadie les hable en inglés en SU proprio pais. Gibraltar ES parte de España.
Es parte de la vieja Europa continental. Y no de las islas de (p-word)
anglosajones.
=====================================================
Santander's vice-president, Juan Inciarte, who has led the work on the Abbey
deal, was expected by some to get the top Abbey job. However, Emilio Botin,
Santander's chairman, said: "It is like the Normandy invasion when you send
tanks to the beachhead. Now comes the commander to take over once the battle
has been won."
Asked why a British banker was not appointed, he said: "An operation like
this is so groundbreaking in Europe. We could have a local expert but we
prefer one of our own. We need a Spanish chief executive - the firm's own
guy. Someone who knows our culture and what our policies are."
At the meeting, the tone was generally supportive, with outbursts of loud
applause for the board.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2004/10/22/cnsant22.xml
As Western bankers sink amid a sea of sub-prime lending write-offs, the need
to turn to Asia and the Middle East for new capital seems both desperate and
powerfully symbolic of the shifting power equation from developed to
developing world.
Even a few years back, no Western banker in his right mind would willingly
invite such investors on to the share register. It would have seemed somehow
disreputable to have done so. Yet there is nothing like necessity to humble
misplaced pride.
In today's world, the "haves" and the "have nots" are being bizarrely
reversed, with the prosperous West never more dependent on the vast capital
surpluses of Asia and the Middle East to keep the wheels of economic
progress turning. Where once Western bankers would sniffily have shown the
sovereign wealth funds of the developing world the door except as fee-paying
clients, of course today they are only too pleased to welcome them in.
The often secretive super-rich use Swiss bankers because they are, well,
Swiss. They don't expect to wake up one morning and read that the custodians
of their money have been forced to shore up the balance sheet with Asian and
Middle Eastern dollars. Whatever happened to all that Nazi gold, the
orphaned billions which by repute at least sustained the health of the Swiss
banking system? Sunk in American trailer parks seems to be about the sum of
it.
Existing shareholders meanwhile suffer an 18 per cent dilution, and, as
evidence of quite how desperate UBS must have been, it has to pay a 9 per
cent coupon on the great bulk of the new money until conversion of the loan
stock into equity. This is admittedly less than the 11 per cent Citigroup
was forced to pay, but it is still a deeply humiliating rate for a bank of
such once-rock-solid standing.
Some of the necessary management cull at UBS has already largely occurred.
The responsible chief executive, Peter Wuffli, is history, and, though the
chairman, Marcel Ospel, continues for the time being to cling stubbornly to
the wreckage, we can only assume that he too will shortly be on his way.
Once upon a time, Swiss bankers were renowned for their privacy and
competence. Then they discovered the delights of Wall Street investment
banking, collateralised debt obligations and all those other weird and
wonderful inventions of the global credit markets. They should have stuck to
cuckoo clocks.
Not that British banks have much to be proud of on this front either. Yet
outside Northern Rock, none of them has so far had to raise fresh equity
capital. Is it only a matter of time, or can the major British banks hope to
weather the storm without having to resort to Asia and the Middle East for
new capital?