Sovereign bonds selling by Western Banks may worsen debt crisis

Full Story: Bloomberg Businessweek 8 November 2011

Bloomberg Businessweek reports: BNP Paribas SA and Commerzbank AG are unloading sovereign bonds at a loss, leading European lenders in a government-debt flight that threatens to exacerbate the region’s crisis.

BNP Paribas, France’s biggest bank, booked a loss of 812 million euros ($1 billion) in the past four months from reducing its holdings of European sovereign debt, while Commerzbank took losses as it cut its Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish bonds by 22 percent to 13 billion euros this year, the report added

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