Posted on 11/20/2008 12:17:14 PM PST by Cedar
NEW YORK -- Saudi Arabian investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud said Thursday that he will increase his holdings in Citigroup Inc. back to 5%, adding that he supports the banking giant's management, according to a report by Zawya Dow Jones.
His holdings are currently less than 4%, according to an emailed statement quoted by Zawya Dow Jones.
The prince's move failed to sustain early gains in Citi shares Thursday, and the stock plunged as much as 25% to trade under $5 for the first time in almost 15 years. Cracks in the commercial real-estate market, a recent Treasury decision not to buy bad assets directly from banks and Citi's own decision to take on about $17 billion of assets from a subsidiary fund have combined to undermine its shares.
Citigroup has raised $50 billion in private capital, in addition to the $25 billion that the U.S. government has provided under the TARP program, the statement said. The $50 billion of private capital included a $7.5 billion injection from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which at the time put its holding at 4.9% of the company, and made the group Citi's largest owner. Prince Alwaleed initially invested in Citi back in the early 1990s, taking a 5% stake for about $550 million, when the bank faced a crisis sparked by the real-estate and savings-and-loan crises. On Wednesday, Citigroup shares slumped a record 23% and credit-default swap spreads on its debt widened after the bank took on more than $17 billion in assets from structured investment vehicles and shuttered another hedge fund.
Greg Morcroft is MarketWatch's financial editor in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
With a price hovering around a level that triggers a lot of “sell” orders, buying in now might turn out to be a most welcome break in the market. After all, their bad loans are going to be made less “poisonous”.
That's quite a handle for a guy who, if it wasn't for exploration for oil in his sandbox, otherwise would be smelling around some moth-eaten camel.
Some thought foreign investors were manipulating the markets for Obama victory. But I don’t know enough to say...
I think Obama will be a disaster for the economy. But my guess is that no one is going to put himself in line for billions of dollars in losses just to get Obama elected. If there's any chicanery involved, it's in campaign donations, where Obama outspent McCain 8 to 1. Most people have no clue about Obama's positions. It was McCain's job to educate them. Instead of raising the money to do so via campaign ads, he went for Federal financing and spent $84m in comparison to Obama's $650m (and GWB's $600m in 2004). Republicans had this election loss coming - we are the ones who nominated John "Don Quixote" McCain for the presidency in 2008.
The guy thinks like a fighter pilot instead of like a general - all tactics and no logistics. The problem is that wars are about logistics, not tactics - you can win with less stuff, but that's the exception, not the rule. Winning with 1/8 the stuff is practically unheard of. None of our great generals (Grant, Sherman, Patton, MacArthur) would have won if they had 1/8 of the resources.
Is this the same Saudi Prince who offered Giuliani the donation with strings after 9/11? If so, it is the same Prince said by New York councilman and former Rangel and Malcom X attorney Percy Sutton to have funded Obama’s Columbia and Harvard education. (I know I’m being lazy, but figure someone will correct me.) If no one knows, I’ll dig out the Youtube interview with Sutton. I believe Sutton knew what he was doing; the bag man was Oakland black revolutionary Don Warden, also know as Al Moussawi.
The plot is thickening. I’m sure the Prince knows that life will be shortened if the US leaves The Middle East in
turmoil, and Persian missles in the hands of Shia mullahs.
Since no one corrected my previous post, I did check on “The Prince” who increased his investment in Citibank. He is indeed Obama’s sponsor, and is also the largest contributor to CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, whose lawyers have participated in the protection of access to Obama’s birth certificate. I will also correct the reference to Don Warden/Al Moussawi: the correct Muslim name is Al-Mansour, but the American name is still Don Warden, a radical black lawyer once based in Oakland and associated with the Black Panthers.
So, the Muslim takeover of America continues, step by step. Not that many years ago it would have been unheard of to nominate, much less elect, a candidate with Muslim ties (and even a Muslim name). But the generations are getting further away from Christian roots and values in the USA.
In time I guess the Constitution will be declared “unconstitutional” and Muslim law will rule.
Good research on connecting the dots.
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