Know your investment banks

Europe’s ongoing debt crisis is causing stock prices to slide at investment banks around the world. Presented here are the top nine banks and how they have been performing since the 2008 U.S. financial crisis.

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While JPMorgan has fared better than many of its competitors since the 2008 financial downturn, the European debt crisis is a major threat to the bank, chief executive Jamie Dimon said in June. The bank acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns with federal support in 2008 and was one of the few banks to grow during that time. It is now the largest asset-holding bank in the U.S. However, the firm’s reputation took a hit in May 2012 when Dimon disclosed a $2 billion loss on what he called “egregious” failures in risk management.

Peter Foley / Bloomberg

The crisis in Europe is causing Goldman Sachs to look for investment opportunities in financially expanding areas such as Brazil, India, China and Russia, chief Lloyd Blankfein told Bloomberg. Goldman Sachs was arguably the most prestigious investment banking firm before the financial collapse in 2008. It was then that Warren Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, and the U.S. Treasury each invested $10 billion to keep the company afloat. Goldman Sachs came under fire shortly thereafter when the company issued $1 million bonuses to its executives. The company's reputation suffered again in March 2012 when a former executive published an op-ed in the New York Times accusing the company of putting its own financial interests before its customers' and calling the environment at the firm “toxic and destructive.”

Brendan McDermid / Reuters

After botching Facebook's initial public stock offering in May and suffering the brunt of the European debt crisis, Morgan Stanley saw its stock fall in June to its lowest levels since the 2008 financial meltdown. During the initial stages of the 2008 recession, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs announced they would transition into traditional bank holding companies regulated by the Federal Reserve, a move that effectively ended investment banking on Wall Street. Morgan Stanley went on to borrow $107.3 billion from the federal government, the most of any banks during the crisis, according to Bloomberg.

Scott Eells / Bloomberg

Citigroup was the largest bank in the world before the 2008 financial meltdown, during which the government intervened to save the company from bankruptcy. Less than one year after being criticized for issuing executives millions of dollars in year-end bonuses in 2008, Citigroup paid back all of its government loans. In 2011, a New York federal judge rejected a $285 million settlement deal Citigroup paid to the Securities and Exchange Commission for selling bad mortgage bonds, citing the fact that the deal allowed Citigroup off the hook without admitting wrongdoing.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

During the financial crisis in 2008, Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch with the help of federal bailout money. The purchase gave the bank a solid foothold in investment banking and made it the largest financial services company in the world. Since then, however, the bank has been laying off thousands of workers and has faced accusations by the government of defrauding hospitals, schools and local governments. On June 20, 2012, the bank settled a court case in which shareholders accused it of concealing information about losses at Merrill Lynch.

Chuck Burton / AP

In 2010, London-based Barclays paid a $298 million settlement to the U.S. government for violating sanctions on dealing with Iran, Cuba and other countries. Barclays was listed as the most complained-about bank in the last six months of 2011, according to the Financial Services Authority. In February 2012 it was caught in a tax avoidance scheme and forced to pay back $785 million to the British government.

Paul Thomas / Bloomberg

Credit Suisse's stock hit a 20-year low on June 14 amid the ongoing debt crisis in Europe. The stock slide makes the bank the only one of top global bank competitors with a stock trading below where it was during the 2008 financial crisis, Bloomberg reports. The Zurich-based bank was caught in 2009, along with Barclays, for violating U.S. sanctions that regulate trading with Iran. It has also been embroiled in tax evasion schemes in the U.S. as recently as 2011.

Christian Hartmann / Reuters

UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, reported a 76 percent drop in profits in the fourth quarter of 2011. The European debt crisis is expected to make profitability tough, the bank said in February. UBS has written down $50 billion from subprime mortgage investments since the early stages of the financial crisis, in 2007. In 2011, UBS blamed a $2 billion loss from unauthorized trading at its investment bank on a rogue trader.

Simon Dawson / Bloomberg

Deutsche Bank's earnings are down one-third from the first three months of 2012 because of the European debt crisis. In May, Josef Ackermann, who was CEO at the bank for 10 years, retired.

Michael Probst / AP

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