Getting off lightly

The turmoil in the credit markets has caused investment banks around the globe to report hefty losses on subprime exposures. How have the banks in the Nordic region fared? Radi Khasawneh reports

Barely a day goes by without yet another investment bank reporting a chunky write-down on the back of its exposures to US subprime mortgage loans. In research published in November, Deutsche Bank predicts that subprime losses could total $400 billion by the time the crisis has run its course, with an estimated $60 billion-70 billion of subprime write-downs by the end of 2007. Nordic banks, however, have got off fairly lightly. While several were active in the credit markets, either via