Thursday, October 30, 2008

Accounting Changes Help Deutsche Bank Avoid Loss - NYTimes.com

Continuing the accounting issue from last article, so much for German conservatism. Again from the NY Times:

Accounting Changes Help Deutsche Bank Avoid Loss - NYTimes.com:
"Deutsche made a pretax profit of 93 million euros ($118.5 million) in the third quarter, a result only possible because of changed accounting rules. These allowed it to cut write-downs by more than 800 million euros to 1.2 billion euros during the period.

The new rules, sanctioned by Brussels lawmakers, soften the old system that demanded all assets reflect market prices.

Deutsche Bank is, for example, sitting on more than 22 billion euros of leveraged loans — commitments often made to private equity investors to lend money to buy companies.

Farming out these loans had become difficult as worried investors retreated to safe havens and their value had fallen. The new accounting rules now allow Deutsche to hold some of these loans on their books at a fixed price."

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