capital

The troubled French bank Natixis is asking its shareholders to pony up billions in additional funds -- but at a huge 61% discount. This is a bank that is in deep trouble. Every country has one bank on the brink from Bradford & Bingley…

In Europe, there has been a lot of talk about Germany's second largest bank, Dresdner Bank, which is looking to get sold by its parent Allianz. Allianz, which also owns U.S. bond giant PIMCO, has had only trouble with Dresdner since it…

Lehman Brothers is obviously desperate to avoid Bear Stearns' fate. The FT is reporting that Lehman held secret talks with foreign investors to sell up to 50% of the company. Previously, I thought one investor might be the Korea…

Apparently, Lehman Brothers was looking to strike a deal with a Korean Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) for a whopping $5 billion, but the deal fell through -- this according to the NY Post.Lehman Brothers' embattled Chief Executive Dick Fuld…

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the housing bailout bill helping troubled mortgage borrowers, but also giving the U.S. Treasury Department a blank check to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The New York Times describes it…

Now that Friday has come to an end in the UK, we can give a post-mortem to the UK capital raising campaigns from Bradford & Bingley, HBOS and Barclays.Bradford & Bingley shareholders have approved the bank's £400m rights issue at…

Merrill Lynch reported abysmal financial results yesterday, in marked contrast to JP Morgan Chase. The company was forced to take $9.5 billion in writedowns, leading to a loss in excess of $4.5 billion. The writedowns also forced Merrill…

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Treasury is concerned enough about the viability of Fannie and Freddie that they have discussed contingency plans in the case of potential bankruptcy.Given the level of risk these two are…

$75 billion is the capital shortfall that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are facing, according to a report by Lehman Brothers. This type of worry is the reason for their sudden fall in the markets yesterday.Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac triggered…

This is a big story coming from the Swiss German-language paper Sonntagszeitung. I originally saw this story in a derivative report from MarketWatch and then again at Calculated Risk. It's not getting enough play as yet in the…