Monday 17 September 2012

Australian bank executive outspoken on credit crash

Australians have a deserved reputation for delivering basic truths in basic language. This clearly extends to leaders of finance, as this report from the Sydney Morning Herald (including video) shows. The head of securitisation at the capital division of National Australia Bank, in an email to a colleague in 2008, spelled out the dangers facing his organisation.

''Markets are f---ed,'' Mr Arabatzis said in the email, sent to nabCapital's global head of credit, Carmine Veltro. ''Investors are f---ed. Liquidity is gone. Ratings agencies are f---ed and trying to rate to market value rather than through the cycle, cash flow analysis. In short, we may or may not be f----ed!! Key dependency: Blind Luck.''

It's a pity that he hadn't appraised the situation a year earlier, or he could have saved NAB something like $1bn that went down the plughole in the dodgy loans scandal.

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