Wednesday, January 23, 2008
BofA is looking like rival
After Distancing Itself From Citigroup, Bank Has Similar Write-Downs
Kenneth Lewis in recent years has distanced his bank from Citigroup. While Citigroup floundered, the Bank of America boss pounced, buying such businesses as U.S. Trust and LaSalle Bank, and engineering a bargain-basement price for mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. Bank of America has even leapfrogged Citigroup to become America's largest bank by market value. Now it is looking more like its New York rival.
One resemblance is in the realm of structured product write-downs. Bank of America's troubles aren't as big. It took a $5.4 billion hit in the last quarter of 2007 and has $12 billion of exposure left to subprime mortgage-related securities -- each roughly a third of Citigroup's equivalent numbers. Still, the Charlotte, N.C., financial-services concern had to rely on one-time gains to eke out a meager profit...
WSJ: BofA Is Looking Like Rival
Linked by the WSJ - thanks!
Kenneth Lewis in recent years has distanced his bank from Citigroup. While Citigroup floundered, the Bank of America boss pounced, buying such businesses as U.S. Trust and LaSalle Bank, and engineering a bargain-basement price for mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. Bank of America has even leapfrogged Citigroup to become America's largest bank by market value. Now it is looking more like its New York rival.
One resemblance is in the realm of structured product write-downs. Bank of America's troubles aren't as big. It took a $5.4 billion hit in the last quarter of 2007 and has $12 billion of exposure left to subprime mortgage-related securities -- each roughly a third of Citigroup's equivalent numbers. Still, the Charlotte, N.C., financial-services concern had to rely on one-time gains to eke out a meager profit...
WSJ: BofA Is Looking Like Rival
Linked by the WSJ - thanks!
Permalink posted by markw @ 7:27 AM 
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