When Dubai World’s debt standstill announcement rattled global markets last November, few banks looked as exposed as Royal Bank of Scotland, the partially nationalised UK lender.
Moreover, although the bank declines to give a precise figure, Marco Mazzucchelli, RBS’s deputy chief executive of global banking and markets, admits that total exposure to Dubai’s myriad state-linked companies – many of which are now also restructuring – is “many multiples” of its estimated £1bn ($1.6bn) Dubai World debts.
“Clearly, it was not a happy time for us,” he says. “It didn’t come entirely out of the blue, as we knew Dubai was overleveraged and had to have some sort of debt restructuring, but we didn’t expect it to happen when it did...With hindsight we should have had less exposure.”
No comments:
Post a Comment