The largest bankruptcy filing of the year continues to batter Wall Street.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. disclosed in a Wednesday regulatory filing that it wrote down an $850 million loss in December linked to financing it provided to bankrupt chemical giant Lyondell Chemical Co., bringing the total reported losses among the five banks that committed $20.5 billion in loans for Basell AF's 2007 acquisition of Lyondell to about $3.67 billion.
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"The firm incurred a loss of approximately $850 million in December 2008 for marking the bridge and bank loan facilities held in LyondellBasell Finance Company to expected recovery levels," Goldman said in a Jan. 27 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Since Lyondell's U.S. units filed Chapter 11 protection on Jan. 6, Goldman, Citigroup Inc. ($1.4 billion) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc ($1.42 billion) have all marked down losses as a result of the bankruptcy filing. UBS and Merrill Lynch & Co., now part of Bank of America NA, also arranged the financing, but have not reported write-downs to date. - John Blakeley
