The disappearing £16.3 trillion

Here's an odd thing, The Telegraph have a story that:

"A bail-out of the toxic assets held by European banks' could plunge the European Union into crisis, according to a confidential Brussels document. "

Oddly the URL still reads - "European-banks-may-need-16.3-trillion-bail-out-EC-dcoument-warns", the "Finance Most Viewed" still has at Number 1 "European banks may need £16.3 trillion bail-out, EC dcoument warns" but there is now no mention of the figure in the report itself.

According to a correspondent on FT's Alphaville the original Telegraph headline was:

"European banks may need massive bail-out - European banks sitting on £16.3 trillion of toxic assets may suffer massive losses, according to a confidential Brussels document."

The original article also included this calculation:

"European Commission officials have estimated that “impaired assets” may amount to 44pc of EU bank balance sheets. The Commission estimates that so-called financial instruments in the ‘trading book’ total £12.3 trillion (13.7 trillion euros), equivalent to about 33pc of EU bank balance sheets.

In addition, so-called 'available for sale instruments' worth £4trillion (4.5 trillion euros), or 11pc of balance sheets, are also added by the Commission to arrive at the headline figure of £16.3 trillion."

Why did the £16.3 trillion disappear from the report? Why bother if the URL is not also altered?