Just in case you thought the crisis was over, I have to remind you that there are still firms out there that are very concerned about their futures. Principal among them is the UK buy-to-let specialist Bradford & Bingley.
The word on the street is that the FSA, the UK banking regulator, is shopping the company [...]

Lloyds TSB has announced that it will buy rival HBOS for 232 pence a share. Back in May 2007, just over a year ago, HBOS shares were trading for almost £17 each. However, HBOS closed trading today at £1.47, sustaining a loss of over 90% in 16 months time.
While HBOS is often touted as [...]

As we plan for another day in financial turmoil, I have to admit to preferring financial services industry consolidation through merger to bankruptcy. I was just reading FT Alphaville’s post on a proposed Lloyds TSB takeover of HBOS (the UK equivalent of a JP Morgan Chase takeover of Washington Mutual) and I thought, “what [...]

It’s done. Core Lehman is sold. Now the rest of the company can be liquidated. Barclays will buy the core assets for a measly $2 billion. For Lehman staff in the US, this has to be a relief. However, staff in London are probably left out in the cold as [...]

It has now been confirmed that Bank of America has bought Merrill Lynch for $44 billion.

Originally, Bank of America had been in the running to buy Lehman Brothers but balked at Lehman’s black hole of a balance sheet. The U.S. Government was offering no backstop for a Lehman purchase as it had for Bear Stearns.

Merrill shrewdly dialed up Bank of America, in fear for their own continued existence. They have been able to strike a deal – and at a decent price. Notch one up for John Thain.

Bank of America made a big mistake in buying Countrywide Financial — one that they will regret for years. Buying Lehman Brothers would have been even more disastrous given their exposure to Commercial Real Estate. But, this deal is good for several reasons. It is better for Merrill than BoA though, as it is a premium to book value and the current stock price.

The world of financial services in not looking terribly stable in the wake of the Frannie nationalization. In fact, things are as jumbled as they have ever been. The latest news has AIG down 30% and both WaMu and Lehman brothers on the auction block.
Given the pace of the news cycle these past [...]

I have only seen this story in Germany so far. The long and short is that this is a done deal. Deutsche Bank is expected to close the deal tomorrow. Helping to seal the deal is the fact that no layoffs are anticipated initially. This will make union leaders very happy, as they [...]

I posted yesterday that Nationwide had confirmed it was in advanced talks with both Cheshire and Derbyshire. Now, it seems the mergers are complete. However, it should be noted that these deals were done under duress (see post mentioned above). Cheshire and Derbyshire were foisted onto Nationwide by the FSA.
See the details [...]

Nationwide Building Society, the largest not to demutualise, is taking full advantage of the troubles in the mortgage market and looking for rivals to snap up on the cheap. Multiple news outlets are reporting that Nationwide is in talks with Derbyshire and Cheshire amongst others.
UPDATE: This merger is now a done deal. [...]

In Germany, there are two major concerns at the moment

The biggest banking merger in Germany’s history involving their #2 and #3 banks and Germany’s largest company Allianz
The slowdown in the economy

Commerz-DresdnerFirst is the Dresdner-Commerzbank situation. I have reported on this deal twice. See my posts, Commerzbank gobbles up Dresdner and Dresdner Bank: looking [...]