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| Europe |
| Brown, Sarkozy urge banks to reveal write-offs |
| 2008-03-24 |
| LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will urge banks this week to make ‘full and immediate disclosure’ of write-offs due to the global credit crisis, British officials said on Monday. The two leaders are increasingly concerned that confidence in financial markets is being hit by uncertainty over the scale of bad debts on banks’ books, which some estimates put as high as $600 billion, Brown’s office said. Sarkozy is due to hold talks with Brown on Thursday during his two-day visit to Britain as guest of Queen Elizabeth. The two men will ‘call for greater transparency in financial markets and, as a first step, full and immediate disclosure of the scale of write-offs by banks,’ Brown’s office said in a statement. Sarkozy’s visit is seen by British media as part of his drive for a close partnership with Brown. Banks have written down over $125 billion of assets since November, hammering their shares. So far, action by central banks and governments has failed to halt the market turmoil. The two leaders will call for more talks with the United States and other countries on ‘measures to promote financial stability’, in forums such as the Group of Seven industrialised countries, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Brown’s office said. Brown, Sarkozy and the leaders of Germany and Italy met in London in January to discuss the financial crisis. The highest profile victim of the crisis in Britain has been mortgage lender Northern Rock, which Brown’s government was forced to nationalise. Sarkozy and Brown will repeat calls for credit rating agencies to be more transparent and for international financial institutions to be reformed to provide early warning of financial risks to the global economy. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 Are you ready for the $20 loaf. Nothing matters, except yield. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2008-03-24 18:27 |
| #2 Yeah, Joe. After the Fed gets over dumping a couple trillion dollars into the system to protect the golden parachute mismanagers, everything will have a couple extra zeros attached to it. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-24 07:55 |
| #1 FREEREPUBLIC > ARE YOU READY FOR DOW 20,000? So-o-o-o-o-o 2005. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-03-24 02:53 |