STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 23 July 2012

[Demeter]

49. Europe’s banks stage US retreat

http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/eabcc680-d3eb-11e1-a5c2-00144feabdc0.html?ft#axzz21POyknx6

...The deleveraging process at eurozone banks is reshaping the US banking landscape. Lawyers, bankers and analysts say that many of the spoils of eurozone turmoil have gone to US banks, their Canadian competitors or specialised private equity groups and hedge funds, with Chinese operators also ramping up US operations.

For example, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, two of the biggest US banks, last year bought a portion of a $9.5bn portfolio of commercial real estate loans sold by Anglo Irish, the nationalised Irish bank. Capital One, the US bank, bought the US online banking business of ING, the Dutch lender. France and Germany, led by BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, still have some of the biggest foreign operations in the US. But French financial groups including BNP, Crédit Agricole and Société Générale have announced plans to shrink their balance sheets. US assets owned by German banks have fallen from their $427bn peak in 2007, to $267bn as of March. Assets held in the US by French bank-owned offices have fallen from $420bn in December 2007 to $373bn, according to the latest Fed data. The pullback by banks from smaller eurozone countries is even more stark, as their banking systems come under severe pressure. US assets owned by Irish banks plunged from $130bn in September 2008 to $3.6bn as of March.

Wells has been one of the more active US banks in buying assets from European competitors. The company recently snapped up a $6bn loan portfolio from WestLB, the troubled German Landesbank, as well as the North American energy business of France’s BNP...