More Bad Press for M&I

This is more and more amazing, given M&I's history.

Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee was identified as one of the many financial services companies receiving large amounts of taxpayer-funded capital through the U.S. Treasury that may be in worse shape than previously disclosed, according to a research report.

Audit Integrity, a Los Angeles-based firm that rates companies based on corporate integrity risk, looked at the 25 financial services companies that have received more than 90 percent of funding doled out so far through the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

More than 80 percent of those companies have a “very aggressive” or “aggressive” accounting and governance risk rating based on recent regulatory filings, and have a high likelihood to restate earnings or be affected by other adverse events such as regulatory actions or shareholder litigation. That compares to a 35 percent “very aggressive” or “aggressive” rating among the 7,000 public companies measured overall by Audit Integrity.

Fourteen of the 25 financial services companies studied were rated as “very aggressive,” including Milwaukee-based M&I, which received $1.7 billion from the Treasury program.

I don't know who "Audit Integrity" is, but the report raises very serious questions, indeed.

Source: Business Journal