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CHRONOLOGY: Subprime crisis affects banks worldwide

Tue Apr 1, 2008 9:10am EDT

(Reuters) - UBS AG doubled its writedowns from the subprime crisis on Tuesday, dumped its chairman and sought more emergency capital in a second attempt to reverse its fortunes.

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UBS wrote down an additional $19 billion in ailing assets, bringing to $37 billion its hit from the subprime crisis.

Here is a chronology of some of the major losses suffered by banks affected by the credit crisis:

February 8, 2007 - HSBC - Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings blames U.S. subprime defaults for its first-ever profit warning.

April 2 - NEW CENTURY - New Century Financial Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection amid a surge in homeowner defaults, the biggest mortgage lender to collapse in the slumping U.S. housing market. In March 2008 a federal bankruptcy judge cleared the way for New Century creditors to vote on a liquidation plan. According to the court, there were $35.1 billion of claims.

July 30 - HSBC says its charge for bad debts was $6.35 billion in the first half of the year, up 63 percent from $3.89 billion in the same period last year due to U.S. subprime loans.

August 9 - BNP PARIBAS - The French bank bars investors from redeeming cash in three funds as it was unable to calculate their value due to credit market turmoil.

September 13 - NORTHERN ROCK - Britain's biggest casualty of the credit crisis suffers a bank run after needing emergency funding from the Bank of England and is nationalized five months later.

October 15 - CITIGROUP, the largest U.S. bank by market value, says Q3 profit fell 57 percent due to losses, with net income down to $2.38 billion from $5.51 billion a year earlier.

October 19 - WACHOVIA CORP - The fourth-largest U.S. bank posts a 10 percent decline in Q3 profit, to $1.69 billion from $1.88 billion a year earlier, having suffered $1.3 billion of writedowns due to credit market turmoil.

October 24 - MERRILL LYNCH stuns Wall Street by writing down $8.4 billion in bad investments related to subprime lending.

October 26 - COUNTRYWIDE - U.S. mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp posts a $1.2 billion third-quarter loss after writing down $1 billion in subprime loans.

October 29 - MITSUBISHI UFJ FINANCIAL GROUP INC, Japan's largest bank, says it would write down subprime-related investments by as much as 30 billion yen ($260 million), six times more than previously announced.

December 19 - MORGAN STANLEY posts a $3.59 billion Q4 loss and $9.4 billion of mortgage-related writedowns.

January 15, 2008 - CITIGROUP - The largest U.S. bank posts its first quarterly loss since Citigroup's creation in 1998, hurt by $18.1 billion of subprime-related writedowns.

Jan 17 - MERRILL LYNCH reports its worst-ever quarter, revealing around $16 billion in mortgage-related writedowns.

February 14 - UBS says it is writing down $18 billion in bad loans.

February 19 - CREDIT SUISSE marks down the value of asset-backed investments by $2.85 billion.

- BARCLAYS - Britain's third-biggest bank raises its 2007 writedown to 1.6 billion pounds ($3.1 billion).

February 20 - BNP PARIBAS - The French bank reveals 898 million euros ($1.3 billion) in writedowns in the fourth quarter.

February 28 - DZ Bank, one of Germany's biggest financial groups, announces 1.36 billion euros in writedowns.

March 3 - HSBC's investment banking arm takes a $2.1 billion writedown on assets tarnished by the subprime crisis.

April 1 - UBS doubles its writedowns to $37.4 billion.

- Deutsche Bank reveals a 2.5 billion euro writedown, equal to more than a third of its 2007 net profit.

(Writing by Nagesh Narayana; Editing by David Cutler/Will Waterman)



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