The last resort: Offloading emerging markets businesses

Such is the fragile state of leading banks that they might have to sell their highly prized emerging markets businesses to survive.

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.

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