CBA may take $2b Klarna writedown, says Morgan Stanley
Tom Richardson
Morgan Stanley analyst Richard Wiles says that Commonwealth Bank may be forced to take a $2 billion writedown of its Klarna stake in the 2022 financial year.
The analyst assumes an 85 per cent haircut in the Klarna stake’s value from $2.48 billion in the first half to just $400 million at the end of FY 2022.
The potential writedown would reduce the book value by about $1.20 per share or 2.5 per cent.
Any writedown would be booked through CBA’s reserves not its income statement, Morgan Stanley said.
The broker quoted a Financial Times report from July 2 that said Klarna’s valuation had fallen from $US46 billion to $US6.5 billion.
