HBOS

The major European banks have gotten into the swing of things with their own reporting season. Today, Deutsche Bank and HBOS reported earnings.Deutsche Bank recorded a pre-tax profit of 642 millioneuros after writedowns of $3.6 billion due…

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…

This is the latest M&A rumour making the rounds in financial circles. I caught this in Today's Financial News. And that may be the moment when National Australia Bank (NAB:Australia) makes a formal offer for the Australian branch…

The UK is in the throes of the worst of the mortgage meltdown. Financial shares are tumbling. Home builders face collapse. Many top names in British housing and banking have been caught out and are getting a deserved swift kick: Northern…

In April, I wondered aloud where HBOS was in this crisis in a post called "Where's HBOS?". Now, we know they are not immune to the problems infecting global finance.The Guardian has reported on the difficulty HBOS is having raising money…

The Sunday Telegraph is reporting yet another major Western bank is going cap in hand to sovereign wealth funds in order to stave off the inevitable crisis. This time its Barclays, Britain's third largest bank. At a time when RBS is…

Another side effect of the credit crunch is the lack of availability of cheap debt financing for businesses. Companies have two alternatives: they can hold off on needed financing until the credit markets are more inviting or they can…

The Lex column in Yesterday's FT highlights what many market players are thinking about the company's £4 billion ($8 billion) rights issue: the economic outlook in the UK is worse than feared."The main potential explanation for the apparent…