WaMu Is Retrenching After Taking Hard Hit From Mortgage Crisis
BY VALERIE BAUERLEIN AND ANDREW EDWARDS
Washington Mutual Inc., reeling from continued turmoil in its mortgage business, said it plans to reduce its dividend, cut jobs and sell preferred stock to generate $3.7 billion in capital.
The moves continued a year of bad news for a once-highflying financial institution closely associated with the explosion of retail banking and heavily marketed mortgage loans across the U.S. in recent years.
The announcement also raised the questions of whether Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger -- the architect of WaMu's rise from an obscure West Coast savings and loan to a marquee name in banking -- should continue to run .
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UBS's Subprime Hit Deepens Credit Worries
BY CARRICK MOLLENKAMP , EDWARD TAYLOR AND ANITA RAGHAVAN
UBS AG became one of the biggest casualties of the U.S. subprime-mortgage meltdown yesterday, announcing that it would take a $10 billion write-down and sell a chunk of itself to the government investment arm of Singapore and an unnamed Middle Eastern investor.
The disclosures stoked anxiety about potential losses lurking on the books of other banks. That UBS, long known as a conservative lender, could take such a financial hit suggests that the wave of industry write-downs, which so far total about $50 billion, may be far from over.
In recent weeks, UBS began using a more conservative method for…
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Freddie Sees $5.5B-$7.5B More Losses
Freddie Mac Chief Says Business Will 'Get Tougher Before It Gets Better' As Defaults Rise
Tuesday December 11, 12:30 pm ET
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief executive of Freddie Mac estimated Tuesday the mortgage finance company will lose an additional $5.5 billion to $7.5 billion over the next few years as the housing crisis worsens and home-loan defaults rise.
The government-sponsored company has already logged about $4.5 billion in projected losses during the first nine months of this year.
"I honestly think it's going to get tougher before it gets better," Richard Syron, the company's chairman and CEO, said in a discussion with financial analysts in New York.
Freddie's shares fell $2.09, or 6 percent, to $32.95 in morning trading.
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Northern Rock nationalization moves closer as Flowers pulls out
By Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:58am GMT 07/12/2007
US private equity firm JC Flowers has walked away from the competition to buy Northern Rock.
In letters sent to the stricken bank and to the Treasury this afternoon, Flowers is understood to have said it was not able to construct a deal meeting its own profitability criteria which would also be acceptable to the Government.
The withdrawal of Flowers has alarmed the Government, Whitehall sources said, and will cause Northern Rock's shares to plunge in the morning, as it increases the prospect that Northern Rock will have to be nationalized.
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin group is the most likely buyer for Northern Rock and is pushing ahead with due diligence on the bank.
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