Desperate times call for desperate measures. But just how desperate has it got for US and European financial institutions reeling from the credit crisis? Desperate enough to contemplate selling their most prized emerging market assets in the hope of raising capital quickly to shore up ailing balance sheets?
Consider Citi. In the past two months the biggest bank in the US has raised $20 billion from a liquorice allsorts of investors including sovereign wealth funds, private accounts and fund managers to maintain liquidity. It has also announced a public offering of $2 billion in convertible preferred securities and an additional offering of $3.5 billion of straight...
