For Whom the Capital Flows

Thanks to some data mining on Bloomberg, we were able to put together a chart showing the slowing participation by U.S. banks in the Treasury's Capital Purchase Program.

As you can see from the table to the right, only approximately $1.2bn has been drawn down since mid-year, roughly 6% of the speed of the $134.2 bn NET participation witnessed since the inception of the program in October 2008. This is perhaps surprising given the increasing frequency of bank failures -- now bordering on an annualized rate of 1.5% for FDIC-insured institutions -- but may be indicative of the sharp demands made, and restrictions imposed, by the government upon its investment.

All numbers in this blog are NET of the $70.22 bn of capital contributions that had been made but have since been repaid by 36 banks, including repayments made by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, State Street, BoNY and U.S. Bancorp. (The most recent repayment came in January 2009.) Wells Fargo, Citigroup, BofA, Regions Financial, SunTrust and KeyCorp are among the institutions who have received large capital injections which they are yet to repay.

The following chart breaks up the capital injections by transaction type. You may notice -- after substantial squinting -- that very little investment has been made (only $0.15bn cumulatively) in pure preferred stock, without any warrants.

(Click on graph to enlarge)