Swiss bank bailout ends risks
TEXT OF STORY
Bill Radke: First, another major bank bailout — this time in Switzerland, as the two leading Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, receive big cash injections. Switzerland is perhaps the last of the world’s financial centers to pour money into ailing banks. But as Megan Williams tells us, the Swiss rescue is not coming from the government alone.
Megan Williams: Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, will get a $5 billion injection from its government. It will also get to pass on $60 billion of bad assets to the country’s central bank. But the next largest Swiss bank has turned to global investors instead. Credit Suisse has raised about $10 billion — some of it from a major shareholder in Qatar.
ING financial analyst Alain Tchibozo says most of the shareholder risk in the banks is over:
Alain Tchibozo: They have already depreciated a lot of the assets, so we shouldn’t expect much more further losses.
Tchibozo says now that it’s clear the banks won’t go under, their dividends will likely rise in the new year.
I’m Megan Williams for Marketplace.
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