Wave of regional bank write-offs?

| 8 June 2008 12:43

I have posted a few times on the problem surrounding an imminent writedown wave for commercial real estate (CRE) and construction loans in the US. A few days back, I had intended to post more about regionals. The Wall Street Journal had a good article about this problem, singling out Wachovia and Bank of America as the major banks most exposed to construction loans. The article begins

“While Wachovia Corp.’s residential-mortgage woes have gotten most of the blame for the ouster of Chief Executive G. Kennedy Thompson, another real-estate specter looms.

Wachovia has been the country’s second-largest maker of construction loans after Bank of America Corp., with $23.9 billion of debt outstanding to developers of single-family homes, condominiums, office buildings, stores and other commercial projects at the end of the first quarter, according to Foresight Analytics, a research company based in Oakland, Calif.”
-Wall Street Journal, 03 Jun 2008

Watch developments in CRE and construction loans because they will mean significant exposure to write-offs by smaller local banks.

Sources
After Mortgages, Construction Crisis May Be Building, Wall Street Journal, 3 June 2008
Community Banks Move into Mortgages; So, Too, Does Credit Crunch, HousingWire, 5 Jun 2008

See also:
National City is on probation
The Credit Crisis Timeline for a full list of writedowns by institution.

avatar About Edward Harrison

Edward Harrison is the founder of Credit Writedowns and a former career diplomat, investment banker and technology executive with over twenty years of business experience. He is also a regular economic and financial commentator on BBC World News, CNBC Television, Business News Network, CBC, Fox Television and RT Television. He speaks six languages, a skill he uses to provide a more global perspective. Edward holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.

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