A welcome development reported by LAURA STEVENS , DAVID ENRICH and ULRIKE DAUER at the Wall Street Journal:
FRANKFURT–Deutsche Bank AG [DBK.XE] said Monday it will raise €2.8 billion ($3.65 billion) in fresh capital in a dramatic about-face for the bank, which has repeatedly said it won’t turn to shareholders for help boosting its capital cushion.
The bank, Europe’s second-largest by assets, has long faced doubts from investors and analysts about whether it has enough capital to absorb potential future losses and to meet increasingly stringent regulatory requirements……
Deutsche Bank has long been considered thinly capitalized but have always countered with the argument that the leverage is justified by the quality of the assets on their balance sheet. Low risk-weightings provided a false sense of security, with Greek and other PIIGS government bonds rated as zero-risk in the past, encouraging banks to leverage up on precisely the wrong kind of assets. It is time for risk weightings to be removed from bank capital ratios. The bipartisan bill sponsored by US senators Sherrod Brown and David Vitter is a step in the right direction.
Read more at Deutsche Bank Plans Capital Boost – WSJ.com.