Built into the second Greek bailout, negotiated on 21 July, was a write-down by banks.
The bank takes a big write-down on assets, of 30% or 488 billion, reflecting their fair value.
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Investors must beware companies that report artificially high profits by availing themselves of the asset-write-down loophole.
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This low valuation suggests that Wall Street believes BAC faces a massive further write-down of its mortgage portfolio.
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At the sovereign level the same logic should apply to hopelessly bankrupt Greece: it needs a debt write-down.
In a statement, Rio Tinto chairman Jan du Plessis said the scale of the write-down was "unacceptable".
BBC: Rio Tinto boss Tom Albanese resigns over $14bn write-down
You see, a modification might require a principal write-down, meaning the lender is owed less than it lent originally.
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It believes that eurozone governments will have to take a hair cut and accept a write-down on their loans.
She insisted a "big chunk" of the write-down had been due to what emerged about the company after the purchase.
At the same time the possibility of a principal write-down in bankruptcy made banks more willing to negotiate reductions pre-emptively.
Then there are questions of who would buy Lehman and what the size of its commercial mortgage-backed securities write-down will be next week.
It recorded a large write-down as a result of uncertainty over the U.S. defense budget and spending cuts known as the sequester.
Rio Tinto declined to comment on Mr. Albanese's departure, but Chairman Jan du Plessis described the Mozambique write-down as "unacceptable" last week.
Obviously the huge write-down had to be explained somehow to investors.
Deteriorating home values forced the mass write-down of any asset related to mortgages, and as write-downs turned into selling, more write-downs were needed.
The two heads of a private-sector creditors' committee negotiating a debt write-down plan with Greece also joined talks at Mr. Papademos's office late Sunday.
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The resulting 53.5% of losses are higher than the 50% tentatively agreed upon in October, and far higher than the write-down touted last July.
And the company is doing a large write-down for its acquisition of OMGPOP, which was supposed to be a major move into mobile games.
Zoe Cruz lost her job at Morgan Stanley in December after that firm took billions of dollars worth of additional write-down on its mortgage holdings.
He also makes the point that the scale of write-down suggests substantial sums awry in the Autonomy accounting procedures and should be easy to characterize.
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Yet irrespective of how the specific write-down numbers are interpreted, H-P has seized on the Autonomy debacle as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean.
In Russia's case, the answer is to plead poverty, negotiate a thumping write-down of one chunk of its foreign debt, and start talks on another.
But some euro-zone policy makers feel they have heard these financial stability warnings before, not least over the Greek debt write-down, and no longer find them persuasive.
As a consequence, a write-down of 30% of that debt could lead to a European financial crisis not unlike that which struck the U.S. banks from sub-prime mortgages.
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Even if they accept a huge write-down on their loans, servicing these will require a budget surplus (before interest payments) far bigger than this year's target of 2.5%.
German officials Monday reiterated opposition to any Greek debt write-down.
Even a modest write-down would render many European banks insolvent.
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The exact amount of the current write-down was not released.
The carmaker said the write-down on assets totalled 4.7bn euros.
The write-down relates to the company's aluminium and coal-mining businesses.
BBC: Rio Tinto boss Tom Albanese resigns over $14bn write-down
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