Forced consolidation? New phase of development The banking crisis is now entering a new phase of development, one that may require forced consolidation. Lehman Brothers today filed for bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch will be merging with Bank of America while the debt market has been betting against AIG being able to raise capital quickly enough. Business models We see the read-through as threefold: 1) the broker-dealer model is broken ¡V will remaining brokers need to find strategy partners? 2) What other business models are also under pressure ¡V wholesale funding? 3) Universal banks may be bes placed to survive this crisis given diversified income streams and strong retail depository franchises. What next? The longer the banking crisis continues, the more self-fulfilling the prophecies become, and the higher the systemic risks. The private sector/market solution is key but if this fails, history shows us the end-game may likely be full-scale government intervention: blanket deposit guarantees, special asset management companies, and potentially state-sponsored recapitalisation. Investment strategy History suggests more bank failures to come, implying further stresses across the sector. As such, we recommend investors avoid banks that are remotely at risk of having to raise capital and/or have high exposure to wholesale funding. Our least preferred list includes Anglo Irish, Banco de Sabadell, Danske, Lloyds, Macquarie, National Australia Bank, M&T, Comerica and Citi.