Banking

  BLOOMBERG Pity the poor investor trying to stack up one set of investment bank results against another. The big European banks begin reporting first quarter earnings this week. Trading will be weak. Transaction volumes are down. It ain’t going to be pretty. But trying to discern whose investment banking business is best—or worst—is an ugly task. First, whereas investment ...

  Reuters The five US regional banks most exposed to the energy sector set aside millions of dollars more in the first quarter to cover potential losses from bad loans to the struggling oil industry. Overall, provisions for bad loans at Comerica Inc, Regions Financial Corp, KeyCorp, SunTrust Banks Inc and Fifth Third Bancorp more than doubled to $570 million ...

  Dubai / Reuters Oman’s Bank Dhofar, in talks with Bank Sohar on a possible merger, said on Sunday that it communicated the terms for a deal to its smaller rival after completing due diligence. Bank Dhofar, the sultanate’s second-largest lender by assets, said the financial and legal due diligence concluded on April 23, it said in a bourse statement. ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Comerica Inc. should move faster to restructure, including selling more assets, to catch up with competitors that are generating better returns, CLSA Ltd.’s Mike Mayo said. “All three of those banks have failed to create value for every year for the last eight years,” the analyst said. “So our question for ...

  Vienna / Reuters The euro zone needs negative interest rates to avoid sliding into deflation, European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said in an Austrian newspaper interview, defending the policy against widespread criticism in Germany. The ECB kept the cost of borrowing for banks at zero on Thursday and will continue to charge them 0.4 percent ...

  Bloomberg Family Bank Ltd., a closely-held Kenyan lender, plans to raise 4 billion shillings ($40 million) in a share sale to existing investors by June that will be used to fund an East African expansion. The company wants to make a “cautious entry” into markets in the region over the next year, outgoing Managing Director Peter Munyiri told reporters ...

  MILAN / REUTERS Banca Popolare di Vicenza faces legal claims of upto 1.65 billion euros ($1.9 billion) from clients who allege they were misled into buying its shares, potentially undermining a state-backed rescue of the loss-making bank. Italy’s eighth-largest bank revealed the legal risks in a 950-page prospectus for its initial public offering, aimed at raising money to shore ...

  Bloomberg Apollo Global Management LLC said it plans to use its purchase of Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor (KBM) to build a regional “champion” that will compete with three other main banking groups in a streamlined industry. Apollo, which completed the 250 million-euros ($284 million) takeover this week, wants to merge Nova KBM with Postna Banka Slovenije and Raiffeisen Bank ...

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) said it plans to start buying corporate bonds in June as it unveiled more details of its purchase programme. The bank will start buying corporate bonds maturing between six months and 30 years, according to a statement on the bank’s website. Purchases will include bonds issued by insurance companies, while excluding those sold ...

  Toronto / REUTERS Trading activity in North America’s first yuan hub, Toronto, has fallen short of the heightened levels expected at its launch and local banks should be doing more to spur growth, an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) executive said. The hub was launched more than a year ago to foster increased trade and investment activity ...