UBS to Write Down $19 Billion; Chair Will Depart

gogogol

UBS to Write Down $19 Billion; Chair Will Depart
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/0 ... ;hp&oref=slogin
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: April 2, 2008

PARIS — UBS, the largest Swiss bank, said on Tuesday that it would write down another $19 billion related to "U.S. real estate and related structured credit positions" and said Marcel Ospel, its chairman, would step down.

UBS said the write-down would result in a first-quarter loss of about 12 billion Swiss francs, or $12 billion, and that it would seek new capital of about $15 billion, in the second time it has announced plans to raise new funds since the credit crisis began. The bank's board proposed that Peter Kurer, currently general counsel for the bank, take over as chairman, pending shareholders' approval at a meeting on April 23.

The news came as Deutsche Bank, the biggest German lender, said Tuesday that it expected a first-quarter loss of about $3.9 billion on write-downs of United States real estate loans and assets. Global banks have now written down more than $200 billion of soured loans in the market debacle that began last summer with the implosion of the American subprime mortgage market.

UBS said the $15 billion rights issue was fully underwritten by a syndicate of banks, led by JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs.

"Based on what we've heard for the last few months, it's no surprise that a bank like UBS, with significant market exposure, is coming out with sizable write-downs," Folkert Jan Van der Veer, a banking analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in London, said, adding: "If the markets remain difficult, you can't rule out that further write-downs will follow."

Van der Veer said the fact that the rights issue was fully subscribed meant that "capitalization remains relatively strong." UBS said its tier-1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, would stand at about 10.6 percent after the new capital infusion.

In a statement, Marcel Rohner, the UBS chief executive, said that "the environment remains difficult, and while we are committed to further substantially reducing our exposures, we do not want to undertake sales of positions at severely distressed levels."

UBS has now written off a total of $37.1 billion, including the $18.1 billion in American-housing-related losses that it wrote off in the third and fourth quarters of 2007, Dominik von Arx, a UBS spokesman in Zurich, said.

UBS had a 12.5 billion-franc loss in the fourth quarter of 2007. Its shares are down about 58 percent over the last year but were up about 2.1 percent in early Zurich trading.

UBS said it had remaining exposure to the U.S. subprime market of about $15 billion, down from $27.6 billion on Dec. 31, while its exposure to so-called Alt-A positions declined to $16 billion from $26.6 billion.

But it said its exposure to auction-rate certificates, another part of the market that has been hammered of late, had risen to $11 billion from $5.9 billion. Von Arx said that was because the bank had participated in unsuccessful auctions for the securities in January.

yyebo

金融业的泡沫就这么破掉了

jungle

看看发布日期，你就知道这个是愚人节玩笑啦。

gogogol

原帖由 jungle 于 2008-4-1 20:38 发表
看看发布日期，你就知道这个是愚人节玩笑啦。

如果是玩笑我就不发了。你可以去New York Times 的网站上看看。日期的确是2号的。

courier

早有传言说瑞银的洞比花旗的还厉害

jungle

现在是纽约时间2008年4月1日凌晨。

今天纽约时报头条新闻就是LZ贴的这条，其Publish Date 是 April 2, 2008。

这么明显的玩笑都看不出来，LZ是搞笑吧？

休

不管真假,现在整个欧州股市是升的,美国,澳州期指也是升的.说明这个消失早已消化.

degra

这个是由于GOOGLE 今天发布了gDaysearch ，可以搜索未来新闻。

http://www.oursteps.com.au/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=89914

degra

nnd， 这个ms是真的。

SMH:
UBS writes off another $21bn in subprime losses

gogogol

UBS writes off another $21bn in subprime losses
April 1, 2008 - 8:05PM

http://business.theage.com.au/ubs-writes-off-another-21bn-in-subprime-losses/20080401-22yd.html

jungle

现在要承认，可能确实是我错了，向LZ道歉。

没准只是NYTIMES的编辑们一时疏忽，弄错发布日期？NND，也太会挑时候犯错误了。