By Linda Shen
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- National City Corp., whose trading was halted in New York after the stock fell more than 30 percent, said there was ``no unusual depositor or creditor activity'' at the Ohio bank.
The company has enough capital and access to cash, according to a statement today from Cleveland-based National City. The stock declined 65 cents, or 15 percent, to $3.77 at 4:01 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange after composite trading resumed, and fell as low as $2.99 earlier in the day. The last time the stock sold for less was June 1984.
``As a result of our recent $7 billion capital raise, National City maintains one of the highest Tier 1 regulatory capital ratios among large banks,'' the lender said in the statement. A bank must have a 6 percent capital ratio to be considered well-capitalized.
Investors are speculating about which banks may fail after last week's collapse of IndyMac Bancorp Inc. National City was forced to raise funds earlier this year after its strategy of buying banks in Florida at the height of the real-estate boom backfired.
``After IndyMac everyone asks 'who's next' but I can list several names that strike me as far more likely to fail than National City at this point,'' said Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. analyst Sean Ryan in an e-mail. National City has ``tons of capital and a real deposit base.''
National City said in a separate release distributed by PR Newswire it will hold a shareholder meeting Sept. 15 to vote on increasing the amount of authorized shares and the conversion of preferred stock sold to raise capital.
``With or without the conversion, $6.8 billion of the $7 billion capital raise qualifies and will continue to qualify as Tier 1 capital,'' National City said in this statement.
The lender has lost more than 90 percent of its value in the last 12 months and is the worst-performing stock tracked by the KBW Bank Index this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Shen in New York at lshen21@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 14, 2008 16:22 EDT
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