Dexia, BNP Resist Greek Losses Three Times Worse Than Booked

Dexia SA, BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA are resisting pressure from regulators to accept more losses on their holdings of Greek government debt amid criticism they haven’t written down the bonds sufficiently.

While most banks have marked their Hellenic debt to market prices, a decline of as much as 51 percent, France’s two biggest lenders and Belgium’s largest cut the value of some holdings by 21 percent. The practice, which doesn’t violate accounting rules, may leave them vulnerable to bigger impairments in the event of a default, or if European governments force banks to accept bigger losses than signaled in July. The three would have about 3 billion euros ($4 billion) of extra losses if they took writedowns of 50 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show.