common equity

But it would apply to all subordinated securities and would be at least equivalent in value to the common equity.

On bank capital rules, he said "a simple common equity surcharge should be applied internationally" .

The Treasury's latest investment will not give it a common equity stake in GMAC, but a previous loan of $884 million could.

if it were crystallised, it would wipe out a quarter of these banks' tangible common equity, their purest form of capital.

They own preferred shares in many banks, common equity in others and stand ready to inject capital in others still.

C3 provides the layer of a company's capital structure between senior debt and common equity, often referred to as " mezzanine" capital.

The bigger reserves could be in the form of cash or common stock, also known as common equity.

And rating agencies and regulators consider preferred stock a less permanent and therefore inferior form of capital to common equity.

Banks must hold more straightforward common equity, which can be used to absorb losses easily without disrupting bank operations.

The latest deal could see the government ending up with a 36% stake in the bank through the conversion of preferred stock to common equity.

Tactically, too, the approach of injecting capital in the form of preferred shares rather than common equity, has its limits.

Holdings from previous programmes can be flipped into the new securities which, in turn, would convert to common equity as needed over time.

More of that capital will be plain-old common equity that can readily absorb losses because shareholders would take the hit.

The committee's package of recommendations, known as Basel III, will increase the minimum common equity that banks will hold to 7%.

Better still, capital levels are improving as the biggest banks retain their profits, sell assets and exchange debt for common equity.

HM Treasury: Contingent capital or capital insurance held by the private sector could supplement common equity in times of crisis.

The government would provide this capital in the form of securities that converted into shares as needed to shore up common equity.

Weaklings may be told to increase common equity, banks' primary cushion against losses.

And that's it. There simply are no other ways to increase returns on common equity. Let's see what can be done with these.

It raised common equity early, last November, back when this kind of thing was bold, rather than expected.

It is now extremely hard for such institutions to raise common equity, which is what they need, on stock markets or by private placement.

Any hole will be filled by exotic preference stock that will turn into common equity only as losses materialise.

Alternatively, banks could be forced to return to the average tangible common equity to assets ratios they had in the 1990s.

Convertible bonds are Derivative Security between debt and common equity.

Make common equity represent at least 60 per cent of Tier 1 capital.

Selling Smith Barney, which creates tangible common equity of approximately $6. 5 billion, is the quickest way of plugging the gap.

Under the original 1988 Basel 1 rules governing bank capital, the bulk of banks' tier-one capital had to be common equity.

Harking back to crisis-time basics, Goldman's total assets remain 18 times its tangible common equity.

Among big banks, Wells scores poorly on Tier-1 common equity, the core-capital measure favoured by regulators (see chart).

Let's say you decide to bootstrap with only simple debt or common equity from friends and family.

The minimum level for common equity is not due to take effect until 2015, and the additional buffer not until 2019.

Such hybrid capital suffers losses only once the common equity has been wiped out and typically offers more secure dividends.

For instance, outsiders don't know where the government wants banks' tangible-common-equity ratios to end up.

The ratio of common equity (whose definition has been tightened) to risk-weighted assets has more than doubled to 4. 5 per cent.

This could have hurt Goldman's $37. 3 billion of tangible common equity.

True, the unit's tangible-common-equity ratio of 5. 3% looks reasonable alongside banks.

At the end of 2008, the ratio of total common equity to US banking assets was 3. 7 per cent.

It will drop to 27 per cent after dilution caused by bondholders converting their debt into common equity.

The simplest way to bolster this is to convert state preference shares into common equity.

But whereas Wells reported a fourth quarter tier one common equity ratio of 8. 4 per cent, Goldman's was 13 per cent.

That includes a minimum common-equity standard of 4. 5% plus a countercyclical buffer of another 2. 5%.

Globally, tangible common equity ratios fell from about 6 per cent in the mid-1990s to around 4 per cent in mid-2000s.

This is sometimes because they hold a privileged class of shares that carry more votes than common equity.