Morgan Stanley and Citi Were Closer to Brink Than Thought

By SUSANNE CRAIG and BEN PROTESS
NYT

Big banks like Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which were battered by the 2008 financial crisis, are once again on solid ground.

But a set of documents, e-mail messages and minutes of crucial regulatory meetings released recently by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission provide fresh detail about just how close to the brink both firms came.

This week the commission will release another set of documents on its Web site, including an interactive timeline that goes back to the Great Depression. The site will also feature hours of previously unreleased audio recordings of interviews with major players in the crisis, like Joseph Cassano of the American International Group, who was at the center of the credit-default swaps business.

The current documents paint an especially desperate picture of Citigroup, one of the most troubled big banks, which needed several cash infusions from the government during the crisis.

(More here.)