Switzerland’s biggest bank UBS is set to write down a further US$5 billion in assets amid continuing financial turmoil, Swiss weekly SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday.
The bank will post the loss in the second half of the year and is likely to inform markets just before its extraordinary general meeting on Oct. 2, the paper said without citing its sources.
Subprime losses will account for US$1 billion of the writedowns, while Alt-A loans — made to borrowers one step up from subprime in credit terms — will yield another US$1 billion in losses.
Investments in monoline insurers — a form of bond insurance — will result in US$2 billion of writedowns and student loans the remaining billion, the paper said.
One of the banks worst hit by the subprime crisis, UBS has written down some US$42.5 billion on its subprime-related assets. For its second quarter, it posted a net loss of 358 million Swiss francs (US$315.8 million), but bank chief Peter Kurer insisted last month it would still return to profitability next year.
“We will be profitable again in 2009,” Kurer told the Swiss Sunday newspaper NZZ am Sonntag.
He said the situation faced by the bank could be compared to the aftermath of a severe storm.
“One must first remove the fallen trees, then tidy up the house and cellar, and in the third phase, bring the shine back to the house,” he said, adding that he believes the bank to be now in the second phase.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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