Banking on a Bailout, Europe Joins the Party
 

Banking on a Bailout, Europe Joins the Party

Congress, spooked markets await bailout vote

As Congress prepares to vote on a finalized $700 billion deal to buy toxic mortgage-backed assets from Wall Street, the European Central Bank moved to inject yet more liquidity into the region's banking sector. The pending U.S. bailout has not yet started unfreezing credit markets, and the partial nationalization of two European banks didn't help market sentiment. "The crisis has taken on a more international complexion," said Calyon analyst Daragh Maher. "There is a worry whether there is the ability or the willingness within Europe for a U.S.-style response." (Reuters) European and Asian markets were sharply lower early today, with Japan's Nikkei closing down 1.26 percent. (AP in Yahoo! Finance)

Fortis is saved, Britain's Bradford & Bingley fails

Belgian banking giant Fortis received a $16.4 billion bailout from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, after two banks walked away from buyout talks. Fortis is the largest European bank to be bailed out in the current credit crisis. (MarketWatch) Belgium and the Netherlands each bought a 49 percent stake in the Fortis units in their respective nations. ING will buy the stake in ABN Amro that Fortis purchased last year. (Reuters) Britain nationalized lender Bradford & Bingley, taking control of its $92 billion in mortgages and selling its branches and $39 billion in deposits to Spain's Santander for $1.1 billion. "There's value in the bank's deposit base," said analyst Alex Potter at Collins Stewart in London, "but you'd have to have a different name over the door." (Bloomberg)

Citigroup buys Wachovia banking unit

Under pressure from financial regulators, Wachovia, the No. 4 U.S. bank, agreed to sell its banking assets to Citigroup. Citigroup will give the FDIC $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants, and the FDIC will absorb losses above $42 billion. "Wachovia did not fail," the FDIC said. (The New York Times) Wachovia's shares dropped 27 percent on Friday, to $10, amid growing concerns about the value of the $122 billion portfolio of option adjustable-rate mortgages it picked up with the ill-fated 2006 purchase of Golden West. (Reuters)

Hedge funds oil the gates

The $2 trillion world of hedge funds has something of a test tomorrow, when many funds open their window for withdrawing money for the end of the year. If enough investors pull their money, it could be a problem for the funds, which are already having their worst year on record. About 350 hedge funds have already been liquidated this year. Trouble in the hedge fund industry isn't just a problem for millionaires anymore -- pension funds, endowments, and foundations have all jumped in. But hedge funds have a set of brakes of sorts: they can close the "gate," slowing the rate of withdrawing funds. And with concerns that investors will draw down heavily, said Fitch analyst Jenny Story, "the gates are being closed." (The New York Times)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

Put on a happy face

"We are nowhere near a depression," says Irwin Kellner in MarketWatch, "so let's stop talking ourselves into one." Politicians, pundits, and the "nattering nabobs of negativism" in the press have been ramping up anxiety in recent weeks by using "scare words" like "chaos," "spreading crisis," and yes, "depression." Sure, things are serious, but another Great Depression? Come on. We're nowhere near that level of fiscal ill-health, and we have policies in place to make sure we won't get there. The last scare word is "bailout." This isn't a bailout of Wall Street, or Main Street, or even the "fat cats." It is an injection of liquidity, a line of credit to the Treasury, to unclog the financial markets. It will benefit us all.

Enough with the 'happy talk'

"There's nothing wrong with trying to bolster confidence," says Daniel Gross in Slate, but too much "happy talk" is a problem, especially when pessimism is called for. Avoid words like "crash" and "pandemonium"? How else would you characterize a month in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG , Lehman Brothers, and Washington Mutual all either failed or were taken over, and our "greatest financial minds" assured us that "a bailout the size of the Netherlands' GDP is needed to stop the bleeding"? If anything, too much happy talk contributed to our woes. So "yes, we have to be careful about crying fire in a crowded theater. But calling Wall Street's a meltdown a meltdown is more like crying fire in a crowded inferno."

GOOD DAY FOR: Detroit, after Congress approved at $25 billion loan package for the Big Three automakers. The subsidized loans are designed to help GM, Ford, and Chrysler retool their production lines to make smaller, fuel-efficient cars with new technologies like hybrid engines and battery-powered motors. (The Wall Street Journal)

BAD DAY FOR: Chocoholics, after Cadbury recalled all 11 chocolate products produced in China due to concerns about melamine-tainted milk. The chocolate products in question are commonly shipped to Taiwan,Hong Kong, and Australia. China has reported 104 serious illnesses linked to the tainted milk, and almost 40,000 others have suffered ill effects. (Reuters)

NOTED: Germany's second-largest commercial property lender, Hypo Real Estate, received a $50 billion credit line from the German government and several private banks to save if from possible collapse. Hypo ran into problems when its Irish subsidiary Depfa Bank was unable to get short-term funding. The loan is to shield it Hypo from the finance-market chaos. "This is a shock, there's simply no short-term financing," said SEB analyst Manfred Jakob in Frankfurt. (Bloomberg)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeek.com.

Tou curioso about the hedge funds.