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Yesterday morning (Thur), the general plan on the table was that the gov’t would BUY around a quarter of the bank, with something in the range of 12-to-15 billion Euro (stock prices are low enough to make this attractive). They need to make it through the period of paying off the US fine, and in three years....they might return to profitability and the government could sell their shares and actually make a profit on this.

However, last night, an interesting thing occurred. Erdogan, the Turkish PM, stood up and said that Turkey might buy the whole bank. Maybe he is bluffing or trying to force the Germans to buy the whole bank. No one knows. Turks could do this but it’d take a heck of a lot and no one knows the intentions here with Turkey.

Note, there is a EU rule in effect that a EU country can’t just give money or give an interest-free loan....to a bank to help it survive. So buying the shares of a bank is the only way to get into this business.