Startling Facts from the Fed’s 21,000 Crisis Transactions
Information released yesterday on the reams of transactions executed by the Federal Reserve during the height of the credit crisis requires deep investigation. However, some preliminary conclusions based on the data has already surfaced. Some highlights:
- Goldman Sachs, which insisted it would have survived the crisis without government assistance, tapped one special Fed facility 84 times to borrow nearly $600 billion in overnight money. Morgan Stanley tapped the facilities more than 200 times. (The Wall Street Journal)
- Barclays, the British bank, at one point owed nearly $48 billion to the Fed. (The New York Times)
- The data appeared to confirm that Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley were under severe strain after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. All three tapped the program on more than 100 occasions. (The New York Times)
- UBS was the biggest borrower under the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, with $74.5 billion overall, more than twice as much as Citigroup Inc., the top U.S. bank recipient (Bloomberg)
- Three of the top seven borrowers under the Commercial Paper Funding Facility program were private firms. New York-based Hudson Castle received $53.3 billion in aggregate, BSN Holdings took $42.8 billion, and Liberty Hampshire Co., a unit of Guggenheim Partners LLC, drew $41.4 billion, Fed data show. (Bloomberg)
I’m sure more embarrassing, Wikileaks-like factoids from the Fed transactions are forthcoming. Anyone who delves into the Fed data and comes up with some gems are encouraged to post them on Bank Innovation.
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