The headlines about Latin America this year have been dominated by left-wing outpourings from Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez, by Bolivian President Evo Morales’s nationalisation of the country’s oil and gas fields and by corruption allegations involving Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration, which may well put his re-election in jeopardy.
There are no big surprises in the North American ranking, where Citigroup still leads its nearest domestic rival by a similar margin to that of last year. Then, it led JPMorgan by virtue of $74.4bn in Tier 1 capital to the latter’s $68.6bn; this year, it leads Bank of America Corp with $79.4bn against BofA’s $74bn.
The procession of major bank initial public offerings (IPOs) emerging from China are affecting the Top 25 Asia (excluding Japan) ranking. China Construction Bank (CCB), which raised $9.2bn in an IPO in Hong Kong last October, races to the top of the table with $35.6bn of Tier 1 capital, but its stay at the top may be short-lived.
Japan’s banks continue to make steady progress back to health, and many would argue that the big banks are already there. With an aggregate pre-tax profit of $51.3bn, the Japanese banking sector has surpassed last year’s $32.4bn, and left 2003’s pre-tax losses of $39.3bn a distant memory.
The 2005 listing, which reflects fiscal 2004 figures, represents a mirror image of the changes in last year’s listing, which reflected fiscal 2003 figures. As with Tier 1, the aggregate total assets in the 2005 listing grew by 15.5% to a huge $60,501.5bn and this also follows a 19.3% increase the previous year.