Pre-migration untagged articles

Royal Bank of Scotland, the UK’s second largest bank, this week reported losses of £691m in the first half of 2008, down from profits of £5.1bn for the same period in 2007.

More evidence that the collapse in the US housing market is ravaging the financial system emerged this week.

Standard & Poor’s is shaking up the senior management of its structured finance rating business, which has come under intense scrutiny and criticism during the credit crisis.

UBS announced its quarterly results on Tuesday, posting a second quarter net loss of Sfr358m, or Sfr0.14 a share — nevertheless an improvement on the first quarter, when the bank lost Sfr11.5bn, or Sfr5.22 a share.

Asia supplied about the only demand for structured notes this week, as most of Europe seemed to be on holiday — although two European issuers managed to set up programmes in the quiet market.

Spreads on asset-backed commercial paper and commercial paper issued by banks continued to tighten this week, as the European CP market remained relatively stable.

The long-running saga of Bradford & Bingley’s £400m rights issue is finally set to close this week, with the shares currently trading slightly below the rights price. Turn to EuroWeek on Friday for the latest developments on the deal.

Citigroup became the first major bank or broker to issue in the US debt market since mid-May when it sold a $3bn 5 year bond at 337.5bp over Treasuries this week — a vast spread and a vast negative basis to its credit default swaps. Will other banks and brokers take encouragement from this or not?

The UK’s Financial Services Authority has fined Credit Suisse £5.6m for its failure to spot the way in which its traders mispriced asset backed securities, which led to a shock $2.65bn writedown earlier this year. EuroWeek examines the failings identified in the FSA’s ruling.

Credit default swaps and equities have moved in opposite directions so far this week. Is this reflection of thin holiday trading in credit or does it represent something more meaningful. Read EuroWeek on Friday for all the latest CDS moves.

The funding requests from Russian companies continue to roll in, and the deal pipeline for September continues to swell, even though bankers say country limits are shrinking. This time, telecoms operator Vimpelcom is looking to return to market for $1bn, and one of the biggest names in Russia, oil and gas company Gazprom, is understood to be sounding out banks on a deal. Rival Lukoil is putting together its second $1bn loan of the year, and miner United Company Rusal is still in talks with banks about a $3bn refinancing. Read EuroWeek on Friday to find out how bankers think the market can cope with this continued supply of loans from Russia.

After printing a monster Eu3.95bn of paper through two deals last week, Société Générale returned to the financial institutions bond market this week to price a Eu1bn lower tier two deal. Attention is now drifting towards the re-opening proper of the market in September: will it be feast or famine?