RobertB
January 12th, 2008, 09:54 PM
Bank Hapoalim to write off another $350 million
By Ram Dagan
The last nine months were particularly hard on the economists at Bank Hapoalim. They prepared their annual summaries ahead of management's discussion of the 2008 workplans, and it turns out there was a problem. The 2007 numbers just did not add up. The problem started after the bank's CEO, Zvi Ziv, and chairman, Dan Dankner, returned a few days ago from their latest visit to the U.S.
Over the last month, they took off one after the other for New York to examine from up close the bank's portfolio of financial credit lending in the States. On their return, they gave their economists a clear order: The bank would need to write off hundreds of millions of dollars more on its U.S. credit portfolio. $350 million more to be exact, on top of a previous $90 million, and this does not seem to be the end of it. This is 7% of the bank's market value on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943758.html
By Ram Dagan
The last nine months were particularly hard on the economists at Bank Hapoalim. They prepared their annual summaries ahead of management's discussion of the 2008 workplans, and it turns out there was a problem. The 2007 numbers just did not add up. The problem started after the bank's CEO, Zvi Ziv, and chairman, Dan Dankner, returned a few days ago from their latest visit to the U.S.
Over the last month, they took off one after the other for New York to examine from up close the bank's portfolio of financial credit lending in the States. On their return, they gave their economists a clear order: The bank would need to write off hundreds of millions of dollars more on its U.S. credit portfolio. $350 million more to be exact, on top of a previous $90 million, and this does not seem to be the end of it. This is 7% of the bank's market value on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/943758.html