Swedbank declares huge losses due to Ukraine's branch

Sweden's Swedbank has bought TAS-Kommerzbank and TAS-Investbank in Ukraine in 2007 from one of the current presidential candidates Sergiy Tigipko. He as a banker has built these banks for sale and perhaps was too liberal in raising their value too fast.

Swedbank has said that 53.46% of all loans in their Ukrainian branch are bad loans as of the end of the last year. This figure was at the level of 4.97% in the beginning of 2009. Overall Swedbank's losses in 2009 are at the level of $1,46 bn, of which $1,01 bn due to Ukrainian branch, formerly Tigipko's TAS-Kommerzbank and TAS-Investbank

It remains to be seen if Swedbank starts a suit against Mr. Tigipko, who sort of sold them a lemon...

But Swedbank's share fell marginally, by 0.5 percent, to 65.40 kronor ($8.79) on the Stockholm stock exchange.