Asian payoff

The seize-up in liquidity in much of the structured credit markets in the past six months has meant slashed bonuses and widespread job losses among credit professionals and their superiors worldwide. Joe Marsh assesses the impact in Asia

The worst post-subprime fears of the global financial sector were realised in January, when some banks reported even bigger writedowns for the fourth quarter of 2007 than for the third. Citi and Merrill Lynch - the worst hit of a long list of casualties - posted $17.4 billion and $11.5 billion in fourth-quarter writedowns, respectively, following $8.4 billion and $3.6 billion hits in October. And if all this wasn't enough, Societe Generale (SG) in late January uncovered a $7.2 billion loss due