Russian Banks Count Pigs (2010, loans, professionals)

[Alize]

When Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev’s OAO National Reserve Bank seized collateral offered against a loan from a cash-strapped borrower, a health quarantine was slapped on the security: 40,450 pigs.
Russian banks are characterized by “very high risk on a global comparison,” Standard & Poor’s said in a Sept. 28 report. The share of “problem loans” may jump to $110 billion by year-end and account for 25 percent of total lending by the end of 2010, compared with 11 percent in the middle of this year, Moody’s estimates.
“We have no idea how to build roads, milk cows or pour metal,” said Vladimir Tatarchuk, co-head of corporate finance at Alfa Bank, told reporters in Moscow on Oct. 23. “We’re finance professionals, that’s what we do. We have no plans to develop other businesses. If we have an opportunity to sell immediately” assets taken as collateral, “we’ll do it, even if we lose some potential upside just so we can recover our money.”
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Russian Banks Count Pigs « Finance Helper

[bale002]

It's funny how everyone thought that people would be productive just by printing numbers on a piece of paper or playing around with electronic accounting entries, i.e. shuffling money.

Finance professionals, yeah right, who know nothing about economy.

What the world needs now is more renaissance men and fewer "professionals".