You know, I’d been wondering about this: for all the uproar about banks at the abyss, a point that seems to get overlooked is that somebody is buying this stuff. For every (successful) seller, there has to be a buyer, and if banks are getting capital infusions, somebody must have the dollars money to infuse.
One perfectly good reason why there are buyers: this stuff is cheap. Basket-case banks are trading at numbers that their healthier competitors can scrape up with petty cash. And at least one guy gets it —that would be Peter Moreira at Dealscape (link):
The banking market looks fairly healthy [!—ed.], and you've got to wonder if an opportunistic bank is going to make a move on a player that was beaten up in the recent volatility.
Who could the targets be? Well, the wounded are littering the battlefield, and a few of them could be tempted into a deal. National City Corp. is already reviewing its (somewhat limited) options. Retail-oriented Washington Mutual Inc. and business-oriented CIT Group Inc. have both lost 70%-plus of their value, and might be worth a phone call. Regions Financial Corp., KeyCorp and Comerica Inc. are all worth one-third to one-half less than they were a year ago but would still offer a buyer strong regional platforms.
Who would the possible buyers be? Sadly, some of the best candidates -- J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Toronto-Dominion Bank -- are all closing or digesting multibillion-dollar deals. HSBC Holdings plc has always had an opportunistic outlook and has been quiet for a long time. Royal Bank of
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