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Chemicals and the Economy

LyondellBasell may be largest-ever bankruptcy

The financial fallout from the Lyondell (LBI) bankruptcy continues, as the banks slowly begin to acknowledge their losses. According to Bloomberg, RBS has taken a $1.47bn hit, Citigroup $1.4bn, and Goldman Sachs $850m. UBS are also believed to have lost at least $500m. But like Bank of America (new owners of Merrill Lynch), they have […]

And then there were none

20 years of investment banking as an independent activity came to an end on Wall Street last night. Bear Stearns was the first to go in March, rescued by JPMorgan. Last week Lehman failed, and Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America. Now the two remaining survivors, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, have thrown […]

Lehman goes bust, Merrill rescued

The blog has never liked disaster movies, but it was quite a weekend for those who do. First, there was the hurricane hitting Houston and Texas. I used to live in Houston, and watching the pictures of the damage, could recognise familiar places washed away, or burnt down. The blog’s sympathy goes to all those […]

$514bn and counting

There seems no end to the losses being revealed by the world’s major banks. The total has now reached $514bn. 110 banks and investment firms have now posted writedowns. CitiGroup, the largest US bank, tops the list with $55.1bn of losses, closely followed by Merrill Lynch with $51.8bn. Then comes UBS of Switzerland with $44.2bn. […]

Merrill cuts back on private jets

I suppose when an industry has lost $400bn in a year, some sacrifices have to be made. In May, I documented how Deutsche Bank was no longer approving expense claims for ‘adult entertainment’. Well, things have got worse since then, as the losses have continued to mount: • Goldman staff have to contribute to repair […]

Deutsche Bank ends porn channel expenses

Spare a thought for the plight of the world’s investment bankers. According to the Financial Times, some minor cutbacks are finally taking place in the extravagant lifestyle to which they have come accustomed: • UBS, having lost $11bn in Q1, has now told its analysts to fly economy on short-haul flights. • Merrill Lynch bankers […]

IMF identifies ‘serious slowdown’

The credit crunch and associated debt crisis has elicited an unprecedented response from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Today, the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kohn, told the Financial Times that the new IMF economic forecasts would ‘show a serious economic slowdown that needs a serious response’. Just last autumn, the IMF was calling for […]

Will lower interest rates help?

A reader has kindly sent me an interesting analysis from Richard Bernstein, Chief Investment Strategist at Merrill Lynch (ML)*. He argues that ‘the Fed can lower interest rates quite a lot, but they will likely have minimal impact on the economy unless credit creation grows’. Bernstein says their research indicates that US credit availability is […]

The subprime black hole

Black holes are an apparently empty region of space, with the power to destroy anything that comes too close. The US subprime crisis seems to be turning into their financial equivalent. It never seems to get resolved. It just gets worse. The last few days have demonstrated this key learning once again. One might have […]

Subprime claims its first casualties

Back at the end of August, I suggested that we had only reached the end of Phase1 of the credit crunch. I feared that it had the potential to get much worse, and to damage the ‘real economy’ where all of us in the chemical industry live and work. This was definitely a minority view […]

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