Appreciative as it is for the €21 German taxpayers threw it, Commerzbank has had quite enough of living under the government’s thumb. So it’s going to finish paying back those taxpayer loans by conveniently diluting its shares such that the German government can’t tell it what to do anymore. Read more »
Commerzbank
Actually, Commerzbank is having a bad few months. It turns out that a whole mess of deferred tax-accruals and the hangover from having gone into business in the Ukraine add up to a roughly $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter. Read more »
Someone hit F9 on the random number generator that decides how much capital European banks need and now it’s $115 billion, which I guess is more than it used to be, so that’s a thing. As you might imagine this is a problem because who in their right mind would buy equity of a European bank? Or, in diplomatic terms:
One analyst questioned [Commerzbank’s] ability to make up the deficit through shrinkage or other means. “It certainly seems hard for them to come back with another equity raise from the market, so if all else fails it looks like the government is the answer.”
But the bank insisted this was not part of its plan. Eric Strutz, finance director, said: “We stand by our intention not to make use of additional public funds.”
So that’s nice. But if you’d rather look at it in world-historical-demographic terms, it turns out you can. Because this little consulting outfit called McKinsey occasionally sends out musings to its friends and supporters, and today they’ve got a mammoth, slightly odd financial markets study, which the Journal has written about, concluding that nobody will buy stock anymore, especially from Commerzbank (though I may have just made that part up).
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