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Non-Tech : GTR Groupo triebasa.. Look at the chart.. A winner -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amadeo Mendez-Vigo who wrote (153)	6/20/1999 2:24:00 AM
From: JDGarza	Respond to of 214

Hey What't up with GTR... a little volume but still going down...arg...arg... Here's little ...big....news Grupo Financier Serfin: interactive.wsj.com but just in case this link doesn't work here's the article...another one coming Grupo Financiero Serfin S.A. The Wall Street Journal -- June 18, 1999 International: Mexico to Take Control of Nation's No. 3 Bank --- Holders Are to Write Down Serfin Capital to Zero; Initial Loss Is $1.4 Billion ---- By Jonathan Friedland Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal MEXICO CITY -- Mexican regulators said they would take over the country's third-largest banking group, clean it up and auction it off, while the current shareholders of Grupo Financiero Serfin SA will write their capital down to zero. A shareholders meeting is set for July 8, where holders are to recognize losses of approximately $1.4 billion and apply their equity, valued at around $1 billion, to cover that sum. They will be given the right to make up the balance; otherwise, the rest will be provided by Mexico's newly established bank-deposit insurance agency. At that point, the agency will take control of Serfin shares and take the "necessary actions to make Banca Serfin into one of the most solid institutions in the Mexican banking system," said Vicente Corta, director of the agency, commonly known as IPAB. Private analysts say making Serfin -- with liabilities of $16.9 billion -- attractive to a buyer could be much costlier than the initial $1.4 billion to be put up by current shareholders and IPAB. Moody's Investors Service Inc. bank analyst Philip Guarco says he reckons the cost to the state of cleaning up Serfin is more like $7 billion. That includes money already laid out by the government and takes into account the bad loans Serfin currently has on its books plus various tax contingencies. Yesterday's developments effectively throw the ball in the court of Serfin's strongest holder, HSBC Holdings PLC, which owns 19.9% of the institution. Serfin's other main holder, the Monterreybased Sada family, already saw its equity stake diluted when the IPAB's predecessor took a 28% stake in exchange for buying $3 billion in loans that went bad during the crisis following a 1994 peso devaluation. HSBC, unlike other holders, can walk away from its investment without suffering a loss because of government guarantees. But it's not clear whether Londonbased HSBC will bid during the auction process, expected to take between four and six months. Mr. Corta said several banks had shown an interest in bidding. Expected to be among them are Banco Santander Central Hispano SA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya SA, two Spanish lenders already present in Mexico. The decision by regulators to intervene in Serfin and to state the estimated cost of doing so up-front marks a clear shift in the way they do business. During the 1995-96 recession here, the government either sold or merged 15 troubled banks, never explaining publicly the details of the transactions. That came back to haunt President Ernesto Zedillo last year when he sought congressional backing to assume as federal debt the cost of absorbing some $65 billion of problem loans. After the heated congressional debate and the creation of the new bank-deposit insurance agency to oversee the restructuring of troubled lenders such as Serfin, "there's no way the government can do a back-room deal anymore," says Robert Lacoursiere, Latin American bank analyst at Bear Stearns Cos. Though Serfin's dire financial condition has, as Mr. Guarco puts it, been "the worst kept secret in Mexico" for the past two years, both Serfin executives and regulators have maintained until recently the bank had sufficient earning power to climb its way back to viability. In an April interview, Chief Executive Adolfo Lagos stressed that in 1998 the bank returned to profitability after three years of big losses. "We don't need any more capital right now," he said, "and if we did, we have the clear backing of HSBC, which is our partner for the long term." Speculation about Serfin's future intensified last Friday after a sharp drop in its share price led to suspension of trading on the Mexican stock exchange. By that time, Serfin's shares had fallen 41% since the start of June and are now valued at less than five cents apiece. More about Grupo Financiero Serfin S.A.: From leading business publications From The Wall Street Journal

To: Amadeo Mendez-Vigo who wrote (153)	6/20/1999 2:26:00 AM
From: JDGarza	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 214

some more on sfn here's the link but just in case below is the article interactive.wsj.com Grupo Financiero Serfin S.A. Dow Jones Newswires -- June 18, 1999 DJ Merrill Lynch: Mexico's Serfin No Risk To Other Banks MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)--The problems of struggling Mexican financial services company Grupo Financiero Serfin SA (GFLIY) do not represent a systemic risk for other domestic banks, Merrill Lynch investment bank said Friday. Analysts Rodrigo Quintanilla and Alejandro Schecter said they "believe that Serfin's weaknesses were well-known in the industry and do not represent an additional source of systemic risk for the banking system. We further believe that the system's financial strength should be bolstered by the orderly resolution of Serfin." Serfin, Mexico's third-largest bank, said this week its shareholders will vote July 8 on injecting new capital into the institution to cover 13.0 billion pesos ($1=MXN9.3800) in required reserves and deferred taxes. If the capital increase is rejected, as expected, the bank will fall under the control of the government's new bank insurance agency IPAB. IPAB is expected to inject the necessary capital and then auction the bank to new investors. "We think that this action by banking regulators was triggered by the compression in the net interest margin that resulted from declining interest rates in Mexico and lower yields paid by the Fobaproa promissory notes," Merrill Lynch said. Serfin has more than MXN65.0 billion in promissory notes that were exchanged for non-performing loans assumed by the extinct deposit insurance agency known as Fobaproa. Those notes represent more than 56% of the bank's assets. Until April, the Fobaproa promissory notes paid Serfin two percentage points above Mexico's average interbank interest rate, known as TIIE, which closed Friday at 23.3250%. After that date, Serfin received a rate of 1.35 percentage points below 91-day Treasury bills known as Cetes. The 91-day Cetes rate currently stands at 21.60%. Quintanilla and Schecter said they have already incorporated a decline in net interest margins in their estimates of other Mexican banks' performance. However, they said the impact on other banks will be limited because the proportion of Fobaproa loans to total assets at Serfin (38%) is much higher than that of Banacci (12%), Bancomer (16%) or Banorte (6% for own risk). In addition, they said Serfin's "cost of funds is much higher than that of the other banks, therefore the drop in earning asset yields has a larger impact on Serfin's profitability." Finally, Serfin's vulnerability to the fall in yields reflects "its severely weakened financial condition." Merrill Lynch said other positive developments in Mexico should reassure investors in Mexican bank stocks, pointing to the nearly $24 billion in international credit lines recently announced by the government. More about Grupo Financiero Serfin S.A.: From leading business publications From The Wall Street Journal Powered by Quote Agent® and News Agent® from IDD Information Services