Adieu or au revoir?

UBS has said au revoir to $15bn of noxious US mortgage-backed assets by selling them to BlackRock, the asset manager. But it may not have bid adieu. BlackRock is footing most of the bill for the securities, mainly backed by subprime and Alt-A loans, with a UBS loan. That gives them a route back on to UBS’s balance sheet. It would take quite some storm to reunite UBS and these problem assets. The bank has already taken a $7bn hit on them, implying writedowns to an average of 68 cents in the doll...