U.S. regional banks post losses as loans sour
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Source: Reuters
Reuters reports: Regions Financial Corp and Comerica Inc, two large US regional banks, posted second-quarter losses on Tuesday as a deteriorating commercial property market caused bad loans to soar.
The weakness comes as regional lenders experience rising loan losses, with falling property values causing red ink to pile up for developers as well as for homeowners. Zions Bancorp, another regional bank, posted a quarterly loss late Monday.
"The falloff in values has been more significant than anyone would have anticipated," Dale Greene, Comerica's chief credit officer, said on a conference call.
About $114.1 billion of U.S. property is in distress, according to New York-based Real Capital Analytics Inc.
Moody's Investors Service, meanwhile, said U.S. commercial real estate prices are down 28.5 percent from a year earlier, including a 7.6 percent drop in May alone.
View the full article on Reuters: U.S. regional banks post losses as loans sour
Posted by: Matthew Stone