"Holding two-thirds would allow the government to fire executives or sell assets," Mr. Takenaka said.
Now the firm will cut costs and investment, fire workers and sell assets.In Europe, Areva's most profitable market, people are newly nervous about nuclear power.
His stewardship of the network was controversial as he sold assets, fired news reporters and cut costs before selling the network to Westinghouse in 1995 at a sharp profit.
Otherwise, they would be forced to sell assets at fire-sale prices to fund the redemption requests.
After Mr. Starr died in 1968, Mr. Greenberg and his colleagues, as executors of his estate, benefited by selling assets at fire-sale prices to companies they controlled, it stated.
The problem with borrowing, aside from the carrying charges, against stock is that if the price of the stock falls, you may have to sell assets at fire sale prices to cover the shortfall or the bank calls the loan.
But even if markets do remain calm, the cost of a standoff will rise sharply when Treasury exhausts its current measures around Aug. 2. Then the government could stave off default for a time by selling assets at fire sale prices.
Cook surmises that most short sellers already collected their profits and got out of the way, suggesting the insurer's rally has been built in part on its surprisingly profitable earnings report Aug. 7 — its first publicly-filed results in six quarters — and optimism over the hiring of Benmosche, who said he will not sell assets at fire sale prices just to get them off the books.
Because the SIVs could no longer meet their cash needs by attracting new investors, they had to sell assets at allegedly "fire sale" prices.
The commission might do better to give banks and governments more time to get over the worst of the crisis before restructuring or repaying aid, rather than making banks sell assets now at fire sale prices that would cause bigger losses for taxpayers.
There is concern that European banks may find it difficult to raise capital from private investors and instead start selling assets and spark a fire sale.
