Investors brace as banks weigh Russia exits

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By Trey Thoelcke Published
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Investors brace as banks weigh Russia exits

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By David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc.)

As energy companies worldwide pulled out of Russia last week and governments argued about whether to stop buying Russian oil, one constituency we didn’t hear much from was the banks and asset managers.

That’s because they were furiously huddled together in boardrooms around the world trying to figure out their exposure and whether they can, or should, pull out of their Russian stock holdings, bank loans, private equity commitments and venture capital deals. This week we should expect to start hearing from some of them, and with that the Wall Street guessing game about who is the most exposed.

Unlike with the collapse of Lehman Brothers 14 years ago, most Western financial companies have limited exposure to Russia. It’s a small, emerging market and unless you’re in energy or commodities, assets are likely in the single percentages. But that still adds up to hundreds of billions of dollars, so the destruction of wealth set to be announced will be very real. . . .

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Photo of Trey Thoelcke
About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.

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