April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Securities sales by UBS AG, the world's largest money manager, and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. underpinned a rally in financial stocks that may signal an end to eight months of market turmoil.
UBS, battered by the biggest writedowns from the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, announced plans yesterday to seek 15 billion Swiss francs ($14.8 billion) in a rights offer to replenish capital, while New York-based Lehman, the fourth- largest U.S. securities firm, raised $4 billion in a stock sale.
The fund-raising plans quelled speculation the companies might follow New York-based Bear Stearns Cos., which agreed to sell itself last month to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for a fraction of its market value after a run on the company. Investors looked past Zurich-based UBS's 12 billion-Swiss franc first-quarter loss disclosed yesterday after record writedowns on debt securities, as well as Deutsche Bank AG's $3.9 billion of markdowns.
``When UBS does a massively dilutive deal and the stock still goes up, that's helpful,'' said Henry Herrmann, chief executive officer of Overland Park, Kansas-based Waddell & Reed Financial Inc., which manages $65 billion. ``It's a rally associated with the presumed elimination of survival risk. The market's getting a little more comfortable that the crisis is over.''
UBS rose as much as 5.5 percent in Swiss trading today, extending yesterday's 12 percent gain. It was up 1.04 francs, or 3.2 percent, at 33.44 francs by 3:54 p.m. in Zurich, bringing losses in the past 12 months to 54 percent.
`Enough Demand'
Chairman Marcel Ospel, 58, who helped form UBS through a merger a decade ago, will be replaced by general counsel Peter Kurer. UBS said it plans more job cuts at the investment bank and will set up a separate unit to segregate assets at risk from the credit-market meltdown.
Lehman fell 89 cents, or 2 percent, to $43.45 in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, after yesterday's 18 percent gain. The firm increased the size of its sale to 4 million convertible preferred shares from 3 million and said demand ``significantly'' outpaced supply. Investors paid $1,000 for each Lehman preferred stock, which can convert to 20.0509 common shares once the stock reaches $49.87, or 32 percent higher than the closing price on March 31.
Macquarie Group Ltd. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. led the biggest gains in Asian financial stocks in almost nine years.
Asian Stocks
The MSCI Asia Pacific Financials Index rose 5.9 percent as of 4:20 p.m. in Tokyo, the most since August 1999. Macquarie, Australia's largest investment bank, jumped 9.9 percent in Sydney while Mizuho, Japan's third-biggest bank by market value, gained 10 percent in Tokyo. Kookmin Bank, South Korea's largest by assets, gained 11 percent in Seoul trading.
``Investors were worried that these big writedowns were going to impede their ability to raise capital,'' said William Fitzpatrick, an analyst at Optique Capital in Racine, Wisconsin, which owned 565,000 Citigroup Inc. shares as of Dec. 31. ``The way Lehman was able to bring in capital, that mitigates a lot of that risk. Clearly there's enough demand for these companies that raising capital is no longer the major overhang.''
The debt market turmoil spurred by rising U.S. mortgage defaults hasn't abated, and presents the most severe crisis for banks in 30 years, Morgan Stanley and management-consulting firm Oliver Wyman said in a joint report yesterday.
Losses and Writedowns
The world's biggest financial companies reported about $232 billion in credit losses and writedowns since the start of 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show. In all, investment banks may post $75 billion in markdowns in 2008, the report from analysts led by London-based Huw van Steenis said. Revenue from investment banking may drop 20 percent in 2008, with credit businesses declining 60 percent, the analysts said.
Deutsche Bank, which operates Europe's biggest investment bank by revenue, said it expects to book first-quarter writedowns on leveraged loans, commercial real estate and residential mortgage-backed securities. The Frankfurt-based company said market conditions ``have become significantly more challenging.''
``I don't see how many banks are going to sustain revenue because parts of the business have disappeared due to the financial crisis,'' said Stefan Mueller, a managing partner at Proprietary Partners AG, a Frankfurt fund-management company.
Earnings ``headwinds'' prompted Keefe, Bruyette & Woods today to abandon its estimate that Merrill Lynch & Co. would post a profit for the first quarter. The New York-based firm now predicts a per-share loss of $1.23 for Merrill, the third-biggest U.S. securities firm.
Merrill, Citigroup
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst William Tanona cut his estimates for New York-based Merrill and Citigroup yesterday. Tanona expects the two banks to post a total of $14 billion in writedowns on assets linked to collateralized debt obligations.
``Housing is bad, it is getting worse, and this is likely to get reflected in markdowns,'' Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Mayo wrote in a March 31 report.
While investors agree that more writedowns and share-price swings are inevitable, Kevin Rendino, who runs the $6.5 billion BlackRock Basic Value Fund in Plainsboro, New Jersey, found cause for encouragement.
``You want to get all the bad assets off the balance sheets, and the banks are in the process of doing that,'' Rendino said in an interview. ``You're seeing the write-offs, the charges and the replenishment of the balance sheets, so all that's good.''
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its main lending rate on March 18 by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.25 percent. The central bank also started a lending program for brokers, which is similar to the so-called discount window used by commercial banks, after the run on Bear Stearns.
``You can't ignore what the Fed has done,'' Rendino said. ``It's been a game-changing set of events over the last couple months. It doesn't make the bad assets worth more, but it's going to be good for banks and it creates a better environment for financials going forward.''
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