A U.S. private equity firm may be the purchaser of Portugal’s Novo Banco, created by the central bank to carry on the operations of the failed Banco Espírito Santo. Key details still need to be worked out.
The former Banco Espírito Santo subsidiary in Miami, then known as Espírito Santo Bank but since rebranded as Brickell Bank, faces an uncertain future because of the financial crisis in Venezuela. A banking family in Venezuela had applied to buy the bank, but that offer expired on December 31. The deal had valued the bank at $10 million. Bank officers say it is possible the sale could still go through, but they will also be looking for another potential buyer.
Deutsche Bank settled a tax case with the United States. The bank is paying $95 million in income taxes, much of it originally due in 2000.
How loose is bank regulation in China? Mengxin Village Economic Information Professional Co-Operative operated and advertised a fake bank and took money from hundreds of would-be depositors for more than a year before being caught. Two executives have now been convicted of taking $60 million from customers.
The U.S. Christmas shopping season was down slightly from the year before, shocking a sector that was banking on a 3 percent increase. Profit margins were also down with deep discounting especially in the last 6 days before Christmas. As a result, thousands of mall stores could close in 2017. Early announcements have come from Macy’s, Sears, and Kmart, closing a combined 218 stores. Similar announcements are expected from other retailers in the coming weeks. A mall that loses an anchor store and a couple of other well-known stores might lose so much traffic that the whole mall closes. Banks will likely have to write down billions of dollars in real estate loans to affected malls. One analyst has projected $1.88 billion in losses to lenders from the Macy’s closings alone.
