A Tally of Bank and IBank Write Downs

The following is a list of write-downs from major banking and investment banking institutions. The numbers are current and cover write-downs from November, 2007. The write-downs include the following: sub prime mortgage loans, leveraged loan commitments and other assets.

UBS (UBS): $37.4 billion

Citigroup (C): $21.2 billion (expected further loss of $18 billion in Q1, 2008)

Merrill Lynch (MER): $19.4 billion

Morgan Stanley (MS): $12.9 billion

Deutsche Bank (DB): $7.1 billion

Bank of America (BAC): $5.7 billion

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS): $5.6 billion

Credit Suisse (CS): $4.7 billion

Goldman Sachs (GS): $3.7 billion

Lehman Brothers (LEH): $3.3 billion

Barclays PLC: $3.3 billion

JP Morgan (JPM): $2.9 billion

Bear Stearns (BSC): $2.75 billion

HSBC Holdings: $2.1 billion

In a recent investing blog post, I wrote that we’re currently in a catch-22 type situation. I very much doubt these will be the only losses recorded, and some of the companies mentioned above haven’t even begun to re-price their assets to market value. One such example is Lehman Brothers. They have one of the largest exposures, on a percentage basis, of the types of assets that have soured over the past 6 months. Yet their write-downs are minuscule compared to their competitors, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. I would also mention that Bear Stearns never really came clean on their assets, but as I wrote in an earlier investing blog post, JP Morgan said that they would not have purchased Bear without the $30 billion (now $29 billion) backstop from the Federal Reserve.

What does this all mean? It means that many of these banks, and in particular the investment banks, have lots more to disclose and, in my humble opinion, would benefit from vetting it all right now and begin the rebuilding process. Of course, vetting large write-downs could cause further run-on-the-bank type situations, which Lehman and Merrill, especially, are incredibly worried about.

Freund Investing Managing Member Ryan Freund holds a short position in Lehman Brothers, but holds no position in any of the other companies mentioned in this article. Freund Investing has a solid Disclosure Policy.