Prudential Plc Said in Talks to Buy AIG Unit for $30 Billion

Prudential Plc Said in Talks to Buy AIG Unit for $30 Billion


Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Prudential Plc, the U.K.’s largest insurer, is in negotiations to buy American International Group Inc.’s Hong Kong-based life unit for more than $30 billion, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Prudential would not be forced to sell any of its existing businesses to fund a purchase of American International Assurance Co., said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam has spoken with AIG’s board in recent days, the person said.

Thiam wants to raise the proportion of sales the company gets from Asia to 80 percent by 2015 from 50 percent now, he said in a Feb. 17 interview. Prudential operates in 13 Asian nations and is seeking to offset slower growth in the U.K. market. A sale of AIA would be a change of course for AIG, which has been planning an initial public offering for the unit to help repay its $182.3 billion bailout by the U.S. government

“If they buy AIA, Prudential will become an absolute dominant force in those big, big markets,” said Eamonn Flanagan, a Liverpool-based analyst at Shore Capital Group Plc who has a “buy” rating on the stock. “The strategic sense is terrific.”

London-based Prudential has a market value of 15.3 billion pounds ($23.3 billion). The stock has more than doubled in the past year. The shares rose 2.3 percent to 602.5 pence in London trading on Feb. 26.

Fully Underwritten

A 15 billion-pound share sale to fund the purchase would be fully underwritten by a group of banks led by Credit Suisse Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co., Sky News reporter Mark Kleinman wrote on his blog today. Sky News first reported on the negotiations yesterday.

Credit Suisse, HSBC, JPMorgan and Lazard Ltd. are advising Prudential on the acquisition, Sky said.

Prudential would pay mainly in cash with a small amount of stock, though the terms of the deal are still being worked out, the Wall Street Journal said today, citing one person familiar with the transaction.

Prudential spokesman Ed Brewster declined to comment as did AIG spokesman Mark Herr. Credit Suisse, Lazard and JP Morgan also declined to comment. A spokesman for HSBC didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and a spokeswoman for AIA in Hong Kong didn’t respond to a voicemail left on her mobile phone outside regular office hours.

Prudential’s offer may tempt other insurers to bid for the AIG unit, Flanagan said, especially if AIG were prepared to lower its asking price. Prudential may be best placed to make a higher offer because of cost savings it could make, he said.

AIA IPO

“In the various territories in the Far East and Asia, AIG and the Pru have been number one and two,” he said. “They can justify a higher price through synergy gains.”

Earlier this month, AIG, which is selling assets to repay the U.S. government, hired about seven additional banks to help manage an initial public offering for AIA in Hong Kong, according to five people familiar with the decision.

Credit Suisse, CCB International, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS AG were among banks due to work with the original sale managers, Deutsche Bank AG and Morgan Stanley, said the people, who declined to be identified before a public announcement.

One year ago, the New York-based AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, was forced to shelve talks with potential corporate buyers of AIA because bids were too low, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

AIA had attracted interest from Manulife Financial Corp., Prudential and Temasek Holdings Pte, with all seeking to buy a stake, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking in May 2009. The unit had an embedded value of about $20 billion, a person familiar with the valuation said one year ago. Embedded value estimates a company’s net worth excluding new business.

If AIG proceeds with an IPO of AIA, it hopes to value the unit at $30 billion to $40 billion and get proceeds of about $15 billion, the WSJ reported today.

--With assistance from Hugh Son in New York and Kevin Crowley in London. Editors: Mike Harrison, Dick Schumacher.

source: businessweek.com

Berkshire Profit Jumps to $3.1 Billion on Derivatives

Berkshire Profit Jumps to $3.1 Billion on Derivatives

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said fourth-quarter profit jumped on the recovery of derivative bets tied to the world’s stock markets.

Net income rose to $3.06 billion, or $1,969 a share, from $117 million, or $76, in the same period a year earlier, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said today in its annual report.

The profit increase, Berkshire’s third straight, helps rebuild a cash pile that diminished since 2007 as Buffett invested in financial firms bruised by the recession. Companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that turned to Buffett for funding are paying Berkshire interest of 10 percent or more. The shopping spree culminated with the November agreement to buy railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $27 billion.

“We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years,” Buffett said in his letter to shareholders today. “It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend.”

Berkshire had net income of $8.06 billion for all of 2009, a 61 percent gain from the year before. Rising stock prices helped boost book value to $131.1 billion, a 4 percent increase since Sept. 30. The figure climbed about 20 percent from the end of 2008. Buffett typically highlights book value, the measure of assets minus liabilities, in the first sentence of his annual letter to shareholders.

Derivative Gains

Derivatives added $1.05 billion to earnings in the quarter, compared with a loss of $4.61 billion a year earlier after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Liabilities on Buffett’s so-called equity-index puts narrow when four stock indexes, including the Standard & Poor’s 500, climb closer to the levels they were at when Buffett made the deals near the market’s peak in 2006 and 2007.

Berkshire’s own stock has gained 52 percent in the past year as derivatives rebounded and the value of the firm’s top stocks rose. The Class A shares closed yesterday at $119,800, their highest since Oct. 21, 2008.

The 20 largest holdings in its U.S. portfolio all increased in value in the past 12 months. Coca-Cola Co., Berkshire’s top holding, climbed 29 percent on the New York Stock Exchange. Wells Fargo & Co. doubled and American Express Co. tripled. The U.S. portfolio was valued at $57.9 billion at Dec. 31, a 12 percent rise from a year earlier.

NetJets Loss

The NetJets unit, which leases planes to corporate customers and individuals, posted a $180 million pretax loss for the quarter, bringing the full-year deficit to $711 million on asset writedowns and the cost of cutting staff.

“NetJets is likely to operate at a profit in 2010, assuming there is no further deterioration in the U.S. economy or negative actions directed at the ownership of private aircraft,” Berkshire said in today’s report. The unit earned $213 million in 2008.

Buffett cut jobs and reshuffled managers at Berkshire’s operating companies last year as retail and industrial demand suffered in the recession. He replaced the CEOs of NetJets and jeweler Helzberg Diamond Shops Inc. Earlier this month, Berkshire reported its workforce fell by 9.8 percent since the end of 2008 to 222,000 employees. The total is about 257,000 with the addition of railroad staff.

Buffett’s firm joined the S&P this month after completing the takeover of Fort Worth, Texas-based Burlington Northern and splitting Class B shares 50-for-1 to facilitate the deal. The move prompted managers of funds that attempt to recreate the returns of the index to add Berkshire to their portfolios.

Berkshire had $30.6 billion in cash as of Dec. 31, compared with $26.9 billion three months earlier. Buffett used about $8 billion of that cash this month to help fund the rail deal.

‘We Sleep Well’

“We pay a steep price to maintain our premier financial strength,” Buffett said in the letter. “The $20 billion-plus of cash-equivalent assets that we customarily hold is earning a pittance at present. But we sleep well.”

Buffett spent $1.86 billion on fixed-maturity securities and $1.37 billion on equities in the quarter. Berkshire sold $1.12 billion in fixed maturities and $3.5 billion in equities to help fund the rail deal. In 2009, the company bought $10.8 billion in fixed-income maturities, compared with a $35.6 billion purchase in the previous year.

Buffett added a $2.6 billion investment in Swiss Reinsurance Co., completed in March, to a portfolio of financing deals that he struck during the credit freeze as other investors were withholding funds. The Swiss Re transaction pays a 12 percent coupon, while Berkshire gets 10 percent annually on its $5 billion injection in Goldman Sachs and its $3 billion of preferred shares in General Electric Co., investments from 2008.

Reinsurance

Investment income, which includes stock dividends and the interest payments from GE, Swiss Re and others, fell about 4 percent to $1.7 billion at Berkshire’s insurance and finance operations.

Berkshire, which owns National Indemnity, General Re and Geico, said profit from underwriting insurance policies fell 71 percent to $535 million. Net income from Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group fell 80 percent to $270 million in the fourth quarter as Buffett scaled back sales.

Profit at Shaw, the world’s largest carpet manufacturer, fell 65 percent to $8 million as sales to residential customers declined in the fourth quarter. Profit at furniture stores, jewelry shops and the candy business advanced 24 percent to $113 million.

Marmon Holdings Inc., the collection of more than 100 businesses purchased by Berkshire from the Pritzker family last year, reported that profit declined 19 percent to $160 million. The unit’s operations include manufacturing, leasing railroad tank cars and making wire and cable products.

Derivative Bets

Buffett sold the equity derivatives to undisclosed buyers for $4.9 billion, according to the 2008 letter to shareholders, and can invest the cash and keep any profit even if he loses the bet. If the four indexes covered by the contracts are at zero when the agreements expire, the losses would be $38 billion, the firm said today, a figure that can change as currencies fluctuate. The total was $38.6 billion on Sept. 30.

The four indexes -- the S&P, the U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index, the Dow Jones Euro Stoxx 50 Index and Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average -- rose in the fourth quarter.

Berkshire has also sold credit-default swaps on individual companies, and contracts that require the firm to pay when credit losses occur at borrowers included in high-yield bond indexes. The maximum Berkshire would still have to pay on agreements tied to the indexes is about $5.5 billion, the firm said today.

Sanofi-Aventis, Tesco

Buffett disclosed increased stakes in drugmaker Sanofi- Aventis SA and Tesco Plc, Britain’s largest retailer in the regulatory filing. Berkshire’s holdings of Sanofi-Aventis rose about 14 percent to 25.1 million shares and the stake in Tesco rose 3.1 percent to 234.2 million shares. Berkshire owned 1.9 percent of Sanofi and 3 percent of Tesco, as of Dec. 31.

Berkshire was stripped of its last remaining AAA credit grade from a major rating firm this month when Standard & Poor’s downgraded Berkshire. The cut, which followed reductions last year by Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service, came as Berkshire neared the completion of the Burlington Northern takeover.

source: bloomberg

Payrolls Probably Declined in February: U.S. Economy Preview

Payrolls Probably Declined in February: U.S. Economy Preview


Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Companies in the U.S. probably cut more jobs in February and the unemployment rate increased, indicating the labor market in the world’s largest economy is still struggling to rebound, economists said before a government report this week.

Payrolls probably fell by 50,000 after declining 20,000 in January, according to the median forecast of 62 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the Labor Department’s March 5 report. The unemployment rate may have increased to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent. Winter storms this month may have contributed to a lower payrolls number, some economists said.

A lack of job growth since the economy began expanding again in mid-2009 is making for an uneven recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s. Companies are reducing head count to trim costs, a trend that’s likely to restrain consumer spending in coming months.

“Even leaving aside the effects of inclement weather, the economy still appears to be shedding jobs,” said Aaron Smith, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Although businesses have stopped cutting inventories and are beginning to invest more, they have been more hesitant to increase their hiring.”

Job growth, and the wage gains that accompany it, are needed to further fuel consumer purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy.

After the creation of 64,000 jobs in November, the first monthly increase in almost two years, payrolls fell in December and January. The economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, the most of any downturn in the postwar era.

Bernanke on Employment

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress last week that there were “tentative” signs of stabilization in labor markets, such as fewer job losses and a gain in factory employment last month.

“Notwithstanding these positive signs, the job market remains quite weak, with the unemployment rate near 10 percent and job openings scarce,” Bernanke said. The economy is in a “nascent” recovery that he said will require low interest rates.

U.S. stocks have declined this year, due in part to signs the economy is struggling to accelerate. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are both down 1 percent so far this year.

The jobless rate probably increased for the first time since October, the survey median showed. The rate is forecast to end the year at 9.5 percent, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed this month.

East Coast Snowstorms

Snowstorms that crippled portions of the East Coast earlier this month may cause the February payroll numbers to look worse than they otherwise would be, some economists said. The job losses associated with the blizzards may result in a bigger gain in March payrolls, they said.

“The weather will certainly play a role,” said Raymond Stone, managing director and an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Skillman, New Jersey, who projects payrolls will be reduced by as many as 200,000 because of the storms. His overall forecast is for a decline of 150,000 and he referenced a snow-related payroll drop in January 1996.

Factories are at the forefront of the economic recovery, and orders for manufactured goods are forecast to increase in January for a fifth straight month, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed. The 1.8 percent gain in factory orders, projected before a March 4 report from the Commerce Department, would follow a 1 percent rise in December.

Manufacturing Growth

Manufacturing probably expanded in February for a seventh straight month, economists said before a report from the Institute for Supply Management tomorrow. The Tempe, Arizona- based group’s factory index slowed to 58 from a January reading of 58.4 that was the highest since August 2004, the survey showed. Index readings greater than 50 signal expansion.

The U.S. economy expanded in the fourth quarter at a 5.9 percent annual rate, led by business spending on equipment and software, figures from the Commerce Department last week showed. Consumer spending slowed to a 1.7 percent pace, from 2.8 percent during the previous three months.

At the start of 2010, Americans probably increased their spending by 0.4 percent, from 0.2 percent in December, economists said before a report tomorrow from the Commerce Department. Incomes probably rose 0.4 percent in January for a second month, the survey showed.

Store Closings

The pace of spending is causing some companies to reduce payrolls. Sears Holding Corp., the largest U.S. department-store chain, said this month that it will close 21 underperforming stores in April and May. The closings will affect about 1,000 full-time and part-time workers, Kimberly Freely, a spokeswoman for the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company, said in a Feb. 22 telephone interview.

Construction also remains a weak spot for the economy. The Commerce Department tomorrow is expected to report construction spending declined in January for the eighth time in nine months, according to the survey median. The projected 0.6 percent drop would follow a 1.2 percent decrease.



Bloomberg Survey

==============================================================
Release Period Prior Median
Indicator Date Value Forecast
==============================================================
Pers Inc MOM% 3/1 Jan. 0.4% 0.4%
Pers Spend MOM% 3/1 Jan. 0.2% 0.4%
Core PCE Prices YOY% 3/1 Jan. 1.5% 1.4%
ISM Manu Index 3/1 Feb. 58.4 58.0
Construct Spending MOM% 3/1 Jan. -1.2% -0.6%
ADP Payroll ,000’s 3/3 Feb. -22 -10
ISM NonManu Index 3/3 Feb. 50.5 51.0
Productivity QOQ% 3/4 4Q 6.2% 6.3%
Labor Costs QOQ% 3/4 4Q F -4.4% -4.4%
Initial Claims ,000’s 3/4 20-Feb 496 465
Factory Orders MOM% 3/4 Jan. 1.0% 1.8%
Pending Homes MOM% 3/4 Jan. 1.0% 1.0%
Nonfarm Payrolls ,000’s 3/5 Feb. -20 -50
Unemploy Rate % 3/5 Feb. 9.7% 9.8%
Manu Payrolls ,000’s 3/5 Feb. 11 -20
Hourly Earnings MOM% 3/5 Feb. 0.3% 0.2%
Avg Weekly Hours 3/5 Feb. 33.3 33.7
==============================================================

source: bloomberg

Buffett Says Housing Woes to Ease Next Year, Barring Explosions

Buffett Says Housing Woes to Ease Next Year, Barring Explosions


Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Warren Buffett said the U.S. residential real estate slump will end by about 2011, predicting that’s how long it will take demand for homes to catch up with the supply.

“Within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us,” Buffett wrote yesterday in his annual letter to the shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. “Prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels, of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits.”

The worst housing decline since the Great Depression has left one in five U.S. mortgage holders owing more than their houses are worth. Record foreclosures last year flooded a real estate market already glutted with unsold property, causing new construction to fall to the lowest in at least 50 years. The fall in homebuilding is the only fix unless the U.S. decides to “blow up a lot of houses,” Buffett joked.

“People thought it was good news a few years back when housing starts -- the supply side of the picture -- were running about two million annually,” said Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire. “But household formations -- the demand side -- only amounted to about 1.2 million.”

Berkshire, which owns a real-estate brokerage, a business that constructs pre-fabricated houses and units that make products used in homebuilding, has suffered amid the slump. Profit at Clayton Homes, the pre-fab housing business, fell about 9 percent to $187 million before taxes, while earnings at carpet manufacturer Shaw Industries fell 30 percent.

“High-value houses and those in certain localities where overbuilding was particularly egregious” will take longer to recover, he wrote.

‘Deeply Invested’

“He’s very deeply invested in this,” said Tom Russo, partner at Gardner Russo & Gardner, which holds Berkshire stock. “Across his industrial companies, he’s massively poised to gain” from a housing recovery, Russo said.

Buffett joked that curbing home construction was the best of three ways to reduce supply. The other two, he said, would be to explode homes in a “tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the ‘cash-for-clunkers’ program” or “speed up householder formations by, say, encouraging teenagers to cohabitate, a program not likely to suffer from a lack of volunteers.”

Buffett’s annual communications with shareholders have won him a following of professional money managers and the moniker “the Oracle of Omaha.” He’s written passages in past years that compare investing to baseball, derivatives to venereal disease, and Wall Street bankers to Pied Pipers. The letters have been compiled into a book for those who want to study his pronouncements.

Transformative

Buffett, 79, built Berkshire into a $198 billion company through investments in firms he believes have superior management and lasting competitive advantages. His deals transformed Berkshire from a failing textile mill into an enterprise that makes candy, produces power and sells flight time on private jets. The shares traded at about $15 when he took control in 1965; the Class A stock last closed at $119,800.

Still, he and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger passed up opportunities when they weren’t able to evaluate the future of a business, even in a compelling industry, he said. That strategy has allowed the stock to perform better than the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 in every year when both Berkshire and the index have fallen.

Playing Defense

“In other words, our defense has been better than our offense,” Buffett wrote. Last year, he said, Berkshire should have made more purchases of corporate and municipal bonds because they were “ridiculously cheap” when compared with U.S. Treasuries.

“When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble,” he said. Corporate bonds returned 26 percent in 2009, compared with negative 11 percent in 2008, according to data compiled by Bank of America Corp. Merrill Lynch. State and local government bonds yielded 14 percent last year, compared with negative 4 percent in 2008.

Berkshire did extend financing to companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Electric Co. and Dow Chemical Co. during the credit crisis as other investors were withholding funds. The private deals pay dividends and interest of $2.1 billion annually, Berkshire said in a filing disclosing 2009 results. Berkshire’s net income of $8.06 billion rose 61 percent from 2008.

‘Climate of Fear’

“We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years,” Buffett wrote. “It’s been an ideal period for investors: A climate of fear is their best friend. Those who invest only when commentators are upbeat end up paying a heavy price for meaningless reassurance.”

Buffett has used past letters to discuss plans for his successor, praise Berkshire managers and confess his failings. He admitted this year to a “very expensive business fiasco” with his move to issue credit cards to policyholders at his company’s Geico Corp. auto-insurance subsidiary. Last year, he said the U.S. economy was “in shambles” after reckless lending caused the worst financial “freefall” he ever saw.

He chastised the media in the new letter for “terrible journalism” in seizing on that comment from the prior year without also reporting that he made no predictions about the direction of the stock market.

CEO Responsibility

Buffett said this year that the CEOs and boards of companies that failed during the credit crisis shouldn’t be allowed to pass blame to underlings. Boards should insist on CEOs taking full responsibility for the risk of collapse, he said. “If he’s incapable of handling that job, he should look for other employment,” Buffett wrote.

Shareholders weren’t responsible for the botched operations at some of the country’s largest financial institutions, Buffett said, “yet they have borne the burden with 90 percent or more” of their holdings wiped out in cases of failure.

Still, he said, using year-to-year stock prices to evaluate a company’s progress can be an “extraordinarily erratic” measure. Even a decade can fail to give the proper picture, as Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and GE’s Jeffrey Immelt found when they took over with their shares at “nosebleed” prices.

GE shares have dropped about 60 percent since Immelt took over in September 2001; Microsoft has fallen about 47 percent under Ballmer’s tenure.

Berkshire shares have risen more than 160 percent in the past decade, compared to the 17 percent decline in the S&P 500. Buffett’s company joined that index this month when it completed the largest deal of his 40-year tenure, the $27 billion takeover of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

‘We Sleep Well’

Berkshire had $30.6 billion in cash and so-called near cash like U.S. Treasuries as of Dec. 31, compared with $26.9 billion three months earlier, after Buffett sold stock to add to the company’s cash cushion in advance of the rail deal. Buffett used about $8 billion of that cash to help fund the acquisition.

“We pay a steep price to maintain our premier financial strength,” Buffett wrote. “The $20 billion-plus of cash- equivalent assets that we customarily hold is earning a pittance at present. But we sleep well.”

source: bloomberg

Νέο λουκέτο σε αμερικανική τράπεζα

Νέο λουκέτο σε αμερικανική τράπεζα

Την κατάσχεση μιας μικρής τράπεζας στη Νεβάδα ανακοίνωσε χθες η ρυθμιστική αρχή του χρηματοπιστωτικού τομέα στις ΗΠΑ, αυξάνοντας στις 21 το σύνολο των πτωχεύσεων τραπεζών στη χώρα φέτος.

Συγκεκριμένα, η ομοσπονδιακή εταιρεία ασφάλισης των καταθέσεων (FDIC) ανακοίνωσε ότι η Carson River Community Bank στο Κάρσον Σίτι, στην κομητεία Ρίνο στη Νεβάδα, έκλεισε.

Σύμφωνα με τη FDIC, ο αριθμός των «προβληματικών» τραπεζών στις ΗΠΑ σημείωσε αύξηση 27%, το τέταρτο τρίμηνο του 2009, φθάνοντας τις 702. Πρόκειται για τον μεγαλύτερο αριθμό από το 1993, υποδηλώνοντας – σύμφωνα με αναλυτές – ότι η ανάκαμψη του τομέα παραμένει «άνιση».

Αν και στη μεγάλη πλειοψηφία τους οι τράπεζες αυτές δεν αναμένεται να πτωχεύσουν, το μέγεθος του καταλόγου δείχνει ότι πάρα πολλά χρηματοπιστωτικά ιδρύματα έχουν σοβαρές αδυναμίες.

Η Carson River είχε πόρους 51,1 εκατ. δολαρίων και καταθέσεις 50 εκατ. δολαρίων την 31η Δεκεμβρίου 2009, σύμφωνα με την FDIC. Η Heritage Bank, στη Νεβάδα, χωρίς να πληρώσει την FDIC για να αναλάβει την κάλυψη των καταθέσεων της τράπεζας που έκλεισε, συμφώνησε να αγοράσει περίπου 38 εκατ. δολάρια από το σύνολο των πόρων της.

Η πτώχευση της Carson River αναμένεται να στοιχίσει στην FDIC περί τα 7,9 εκατ. δολάρια.

Την Τρίτη, η αμερικανική υπηρεσία ανέφερε ότι οι δεσμεύσεις ποσών για αναμενόμενες νέες πτωχεύσεις τραπεζών μείωσαν ακόμα περισσότερο τα διαθέσιμα ποσά στο ταμείο της σε -20,9 δισ. δολάρια στα τέλη της χρονιάς.

Η υπηρεσία διαθέτει πάντως 66 δισ. δολάρια σε μετρητά για να αντιμετωπίσει τις λειτουργικές της ανάγκες και να καλύψει λογαριασμούς πελατών των τραπεζών. Σημειώνεται ότι η FDIC εγγυάται καταθέσεις έως και 250.000 δολαρίων.

Από τον Ιανουάριο του 2008, έχουν κλείσει συνολικά 186 τράπεζες στις ΗΠΑ, ενώ οι πτωχεύσεις αναμένεται να κορυφωθούν φέτος λόγω των συνεπειών της εγχώριας και παγκόσμιας οικονομικής κρίσης.

source: naftemporiki