BankAmerica Corp Chairman A.W.Clausen said the bank holding company plans to go foward with
its one-billion-dlr debt offering, but declined to specify
when.
    Speaking to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Clausen
said that during the coming months, "at the appropriate time,
we will be placing or underwriting for equities."
    "We do need to improve our capital. We are in registration.
For the moment, we filed a one-billion-dlr shelf registration
for approval by the SEC, which we believe will be
approved very shortly," he said.
    On January 26, BankAmerica filed a shelf offering for up to
one billion dlrs of preferred stock and subordinated capital
notes.
    The offering was seen by the banking industry as one of the
major deterrents to First Interstate Bancorp's &lt;I> take over
bid, which it withdrew on February 9.
    Since then, banking analysts have speculated BankAmerica
may do well to defer action on the offering, while it continues
to attempt to improve its financial situation.
    Clausen said despite improvement in the past quarter,
BankAmerica must do more to improve its capital ratios.
 Reuter
