Obbligazioni bancarie Obbligazioni CITGROUP (2 lettori)

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Anche Bloomberg legge da queste parti... sono le cose di cui si discuteva ieri sera... in prima linea una domanda: lo stress test serve davvero a tranquillizare i mercati o rischia di nuocere ?

I banchieri USA sono riluttanti ad accettare i soldi del governo (e le relative restrizioni alle loro paghe... )

Obama Seeks to ‘Clean Out the System’ With Bank Test (Update2)

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama aims to dispel the cloud over U.S. banks that has driven their shares to a two- decade low by subjecting them to rigorous reviews and reviving the market for their toxic assets.

Officials will begin so-called stress tests of about 20 of the nation’s largest banks tomorrow with the aim of ensuring they have sufficient capital to withstand the toughest of economic times. Institutions that aren’t able to raise needed capital privately will get taxpayer money, regulators said yesterday.

“What we need to clean out the system is for investors to know that there are not more crises to come,” said Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund who’s now a professor at the University of Chicago. “The stress tests, if they are followed by action, can help do that.”

At the same time, shining a light on banks’ potential problems could end up fanning investor concerns rather than quelling them. It may also highlight how little the government has left for fixing the banks’ problems after spending more than half of the $700 billion bank bailout fund authorized by Congress last year.

“With tests like these, you run the risk of further eroding the confidence of investors,” said Wayne Abernathy, an executive vice president at the American Bankers Association in Washington. “The jury is still out on whether receiving the government money will be a benefit or a harm.”

Citigroup Talks

Policy makers are struggling with that issue as they try to decide how much more help they can provide Citigroup Inc. without diluting the value of shares held by investors too much, a person familiar with their deliberations said.

The initial reaction yesterday showed some relief that shareholders won’t be wiped out by full nationalization of some lenders. Citigroup gained 10 percent to $2.14 after losing more than 40 percent of its value last week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Banks Index advanced 2.1 percent to 59.41 even as the broader S&P 500 Stock Index tumbled 3.5 percent.

S&P 500 futures expiring in March rose 0.5 percent to 748.80 as of 12:07 p.m. in London today. Citigroup shares rose before the opening of trading in New York.

The Treasury, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Office of Thrift Supervision vowed to preserve “the viability of systemically important financial institutions” and stated their “strong presumption” banks should remain in private hands and not be nationalized.

Bernanke Hearing

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may today be questioned about efforts to combat the credit crisis in a Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington.

Any fresh government funds injected into the banks would be in the form of mandatory convertible preferred shares that would be exchanged into equity “only as needed over time.”

While the new injections could leave the government with majority ownership of several lenders, a Treasury official said on condition of anonymity that the stress tests aren’t intended to lay the groundwork for federal takeovers. Instead, they are aimed at getting a truer picture of the banks’ long-term health, the official said.

That too is the goal of the Treasury’s effort to set up public-private partnerships to buy up the toxic assets clogging banks’ balance sheets.
By putting a market-determined price on the assets, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hopes to address doubts about what the assets are worth and, in the process, provide investors with a clearer picture of banks’ balance sheets.

Toxic Assets

“You have to remove the uncertainty about asset values, and Geithner’s plan is an efficient way of jump-starting private- sector price discovery of those values,” said Randal Quarles, a former Treasury undersecretary of domestic finance who is now a managing director at the Carlyle Group in Washington.

Geithner is betting that lenders’ share prices have been so beaten down that investors have already discounted the distressed values that may result from the price-discovery process.

“Banks have lots of assets on their books that have not resulted in losses yet, that people think will result in losses at more than historical levels,” Quarles said.

The philosophy behind both the public-private partnerships and the stress tests is that the more information investors have, the better the markets work. That’s in contrast to the stance taken by Japan in the 1990s, where executives regularly low- balled loan losses only to eventually have to come clean later.

Capital Levels

While U.S. regulators don’t intend to publish the details of their stress tests, the results will effectively become known once it is determined how much capital each bank is required to raise, either from investors or the government. The more capital needed, the worse off the bank.

“These examiners begin the stress test with already a deep understanding of the institution” because they are in effect residents at the firms they oversee, said Bob Bench, a former deputy comptroller of the currency.
The stress tests may look at situations such as how much losses would climb if the unemployment rate climbs past 10 percent, he said.

“In the normal course of business, bank regulators tend not to look over the horizon,” said Bench, a senior fellow at the Morin Center for Banking and Financial Law at Boston University. The new reviews will do so, he said.

Gilbert Schwartz, a partner at Washington law firm Schwartz & Ballen LLP and a former Fed attorney, said the regulatory review would help “put a number” on the problem facing each individual bank.

“Even though the hole may be large, it will clear up the uncertainty and provide assurance that the institution’s problems will be resolved -- either by the government putting capital in or taking some other measure,” he said.

A grandi spanne l'iniziativa pare sicuramente apprezzabile,
le motivazioni ( sapere quanto )e gli obiettivi
( ridare FIDUCIA agli investitori/mercato ) assolutamente ragionevoli e improcrastinabili,
se ben eseguiti/prezzati riusciranno a coinvolgere anche il capitale privato,
e ad evitare un ingolfamento come è accaduto in Giappone.

Buon segno che i banchieri storcano il naso,
sono come quegli ubriaconi a cui togli il fiasco di vino

 

[Imark]

A grandi spanne l'iniziativa pare sicuramente apprezzabile,
le motivazioni ( sapere quanto )e gli obiettivi
( ridare FIDUCIA agli investitori/mercato ) assolutamente ragionevoli e improcrastinabili,
se ben eseguiti/prezzati riusciranno a coinvolgere anche il capitale privato,
e ad evitare un ingolfamento come è accaduto in Giappone.

Buon segno che i banchieri storcano il naso,
sono come quegli ubriaconi a cui togli il fiasco di vino

Però, se leggi fra le righe, si coglie bene la problematicità della situazione. Si vorrebbe fare chiarezza, eventualmente coinvolgere capitali privati, e si prevede al contempo di non rivelare il dettaglio degli esiti del test se non annunciando quanti soldi occorreranno per sostenerle...

E' una trasparenza opaca...

 

[yellow]

Però, se leggi fra le righe, si coglie bene la problematicità della situazione. Si vorrebbe fare chiarezza, eventualmente coinvolgere capitali privati, e si prevede al contempo di non rivelare il dettaglio degli esiti del test se non annunciando quanti soldi occorreranno per sostenerle...

E' una trasparenza opaca...

Concordo, ma è un enorme passo in avanti, e scaccerebbe i fantasmi.

 

[Imark]

Concordo, ma è un enorme passo in avanti, e scaccerebbe i fantasmi.

Mossa molto rischiosa, perché al termine dello stress test, le autorità USA dovranno dire: la tal banca ha bisogno di x mld $ , la talaltra di xy mld $...

Se si fanno i conti con una stima del rischio perdite molto severa e stringente, viene fuori una bolletta stronomica, ponendosi poi il problema del chi sarà chiamato a risponderne.

Se invece, fatta la stima, trovati i soldi e dati alle banche, fra 6 mesi vengono fuori altre perdite, allora sei tu governo USA che avrai perso la faccia, non questo o quel CEO bancario, dei quali è universalmente risaputo che il lato A è indistinguibile dal lato B...

Peraltro, aggiungo, quando tu governo USA fai presente che non dirai come hai valutato le possibili perdite, ma indicherai le cifre e basta, metti in gioco soltanto e completamente la tua faccia....

E' lì il busillis...

 

[yellow]

Mossa molto rischiosa, perché al termine dello stress test, le autorità USA dovranno dire: la tal banca ha bisogno di x mld $ , la talaltra di xy mld $...

Se si fanno i conti con una stima del rischio perdite molto severa e stringente, viene fuori una bolletta stronomica, ponendosi poi il problema del chi sarà chiamato a risponderne.

Se invece, fatta la stima, trovati i soldi e dati alle banche, fra 6 mesi vengono fuori altre perdite, allora sei tu governo USA che avrai perso la faccia, non questo o quel CEO bancario, dei quali è universalmente risaputo che il lato A è indistinguibile dal lato B...

Peraltro, aggiungo, quando tu governo USA fai presente che non dirai come hai valutato le possibili perdite, ma indicherai le cifre e basta, metti in gioco soltanto e completamente la tua faccia....

E' lì il busillis...

Ragionamenti sicuramente logici e condivisibili.

Ma il neo Ministro del Tesoro americano è Mr.Geithner,
che per gli incarichi pluriannuali che ha ricoperto e l'indubbia esperienza,
sicuramente un'idea a grandi linee del "magma "
l'ha quantificata/valutata e a conti fatti ha concepito tale proposta.
( ritengo a ragion veduta )

 

[samantaao]

...la discussione si è alzata di livello e rimango un po' in disparte, ma vi leggo!!

solo che ogni tanto mi scappa
il mio pensiero da contadino (riassume bene il concetto della semplicità, anzi naturalità, senza offesa per i contadini che invidio dal profondo del cuore x mille motivi):

1-credo che l'amministrazione usa debba fare un piano finnziario poliennale visto che le cose non vanno avanti da sole, quindi deve conoscere i buchi e gli intrecci. in sostanza il principale scopo di questo test stress è acquisire informazioni e dati certi. non vuole dare trasparenza agli operatori di mercato, vuole info per costruire il suo piano
2-poi bisogna vedere cos'hanno in mente... e qui divento un po' maligno: vogliono il male minore e prenderanno la strada più indolore (x gli usa ovviamente)? oppure continueranno "colpi di scena" con sconvolgimenti finanziari a catena (solita tesi della guerra finanziaria)?
3-non vedo alcun problema su come verranno comunicati i risultati dello stress test. il modo sarà quello giusto per ottenere gli effetti che vogliono e sono certo che lo troveranno. riusciranno nel loro intento che sia tranquillizare o incasinare (sì perchè loro hanno tutte le info e si chiamano governo degli usa quindi ci fideremo...)

ok adesso smetto di scrivere e ricomincio a leggere

 

[c0ltran3]

Ho trovato questo articolo che mi sembra interessante.

U.S. Sets a 6-Month Deadline for New Bank Capital (Update2)

By Rebecca Christie and Robert Schmidt
Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators set a six-month deadline for the biggest 19 U.S. banks to raise any new capital deemed necessary after a review of their balance sheets.
The regulators will complete their so-called stress tests by the end of next month, the Treasury said in a statement in Washington. Supervisors will determine what the appropriate capital buffer will be for each of the 19 firms after analyzing potential losses under two economic scenarios.
“While the vast majority of U.S. banking organizations have capital in excess of the amounts required to be considered well capitalized, the uncertain economic environment has eroded confidence in the amount and quality of capital held by some,” the Treasury said, announcing guidelines for new bank reviews.
Banks will have a choice of raising private capital or accepting taxpayer funds from the Treasury. Any new government money will come in the form of convertible preferred securities, which would acquire voting rights if converted into common stock.
The Treasury said it would release guidelines on how it will handle those voting rights before completing any transactions. The shares would convert either at a bank’s request or at the end of a seven-year period.
Capital Assessments
In their assessments, regulators will incorporate off- balance sheet commitments, earnings projections, risks of the banks’ business activities and the composition and quality of their capital, the Treasury said.
Losses will be projected under two economic scenarios. Under the “baseline” scenario, the U.S. economy will shrink 2 percent this year and expand 2.1 percent in 2010. The “alternative more adverse” set of projections has gross domestic product dropping by 3.3 percent this year, with a 0.5 percent expansion in 2010.
Any capital investments made by the Treasury will be placed in a separate trust to manage the government’s investments in financial companies.
“U.S. government ownership is not an objective” of the program, the Treasury said. In cases of significant federal investment, “our goal will be to keep the period of government ownership as temporary as possible.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said today that while the U.S. government may take “substantial” stakes in Citigroup Inc. and other banks, it doesn’t plan a full-scale nationalization that wipes out stockholders.
Nationalization is when the government “seizes” a company, “zeroes out the shareholders and begins to manage and run the bank, and we don’t plan anything like that,” Bernanke told lawmakers in Washington.
Banks with less than $100 billion of assets will also be eligible to participate in the Treasury’s new capital-raising plan.
Today’s statement didn’t specify any potential limit on the amount of money involved. The government has already allocated more than half of the $700 billion financial-rescue program. President Barack Obama late yesterday signaled that the administration will seek more money from Congress for the effort to break the back of the credit crisis.
To contact the reporters on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at [email protected]; Robert Schmidt in Washington at [email protected].

 

[Capirex85]

Ecco quello che potrebbe essere un primo passo verso una nazionalizzazione a tutti gli effetti:

Citi Gets Third Rescue as U.S. Plans to Raise Stake (Update1)

By Bradley Keoun and Rebecca Christie
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government ratcheted up its effort to save Citigroup Inc., agreeing to a third rescue attempt that will cut existing shareholders’ stake in the company by 74 percent. The shares fell as much as 48 percent.
The Treasury Department agreed to convert as much as $25 billion of preferred shares into common stock as long as private holders agree to the same terms, the government said in a statement today. The U.S. doesn’t immediately intend to inject additional money after channeling $45 billion to the New York- based company last year.
“It’s just unbelievable,” said David Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams Inc. in New York, in a Bloomberg Television interview. “The government is making up the rules as they go. A continued breakup is probably in the cards.”
Citigroup also boosted its record 2008 loss 48 percent to $27.7 billion as it took an accounting charge for the value of acquired businesses whose value fell. The bigger loss and increased government involvement complicates Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit’s attempt to restore confidence in the company after the stock sank to the lowest price in 18 years. The government is supporting the company because of concern its failure might roil already weak global markets.
Government Stake
Assuming the maximum amount of preferred shares eligible for conversion, the government would own about 36 percent of Citigroup’s common stock and existing stockholders would be left with a 26 percent stake. Shares of the company fell to $1.28 in New York from $2.46 at the close on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. The stock plummeted 90 percent during the past 12 months. Only Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp fell more of 24 companies on the KBW Bank Index.
“This is another step toward creeping nationalization,” Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “This country is going through no less than an economic revolution,” said Levitt, a board member of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Feb. 25 he wants to avoid nationalizing Citigroup and other large banks in a way that would wipe out shareholders and leave the U.S. in full control. Bernanke said the government might end up owning a “substantial minority” of the bank.
Selling Businesses
The Treasury Department is injecting a fresh round of bailout funds into the nation’s banks to help them weather the recession. Regulators on Feb. 25 announced details of “stress tests” to determine how much capital banks will need should unemployment climb to 10.3 percent in 2010.
Pandit, 52, has been selling units to free up capital. He said last month he planned to sell the bank’s CitiFinancial consumer-finance and Primerica life-insurance subsidiaries as soon as the market permits. He also struck a deal to sell majority control of the bank’s Smith Barney brokerage to Morgan Stanley.
As part of today’s deal with the government, Citigroup also agreed to reconstitute its board so that a majority of the directors are new and independent, Treasury said today.
The CEO has said he wants to refashion the financial- services behemoth, built in the 1980s and 1990s through a chain of acquisitions, into a global bank focused on retail branches, securities trading, investment banking and payment processing.
Dividend Cut
The government’s increasing control over the bank’s affairs grew apparent after the bank got $25 billion of bailout funds in October and another $20 billion in November. The bank also paid $7 billion of preferred stock for $301 billion of guarantees on mortgages, junk-grade loans and subprime-tainted securities.
Citigroup, which today suspended its dividend of a penny a share, has already accepted restrictions on executive pay and limited luxury perks such as office renovations and unnecessary private-jet travel. Citigroup said in a separate statement today it will eliminate dividends on preferred stock.
The bank also was pressed to participate in a foreclosure- prevention program favored by Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair. The company consented to lawmakers’ demands that it support a bill, opposed by the banking industry, that gave bankruptcy judges the authority to write down mortgage principal.
Citigroup still faces scrutiny of whether it’s appropriately using the bailout funds. Some lawmakers have criticized its $20- million-a-year sponsorship of the New York Mets’ new baseball stadium in the New York City borough of Queens. Corporate- governance advocates say the bank is paying for millions of dollars of perks, including offices, secretaries and cars and drivers, for retired executives.
Citigroup said last week director Roberto Hernandez Ramirez will keep getting reimbursed for his use of private aircraft and other perks after he steps down from the board in April because of his continuing role as non-executive chairman of Citigroup subsidiary Banco Nacional de Mexico. The benefits, which also include an office, secretary and personal security, cost $2.61 million in 2007, according to a March regulatory filing.

 

[Capirex85]

L'ultima parte dell'articolo conferma che anche le agenzie di rating cominciano a pensare che i bond-holders saranno chiamati a farsi carico di parte delle perdite qualora si rendessero necessari ulteriori interventi per tenere in piedi Citigroup (di conseguenza Moody ha tagliato il rating e S&P ha modificato l'outlook da stabile a negativo):

Citigroup’s Third U.S. Rescue May Not Be Its Last, Analysts Say

By Christine Harper
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government’s third attempt to help rescue Citigroup Inc. won’t stanch the company’s losses, which will continue to swell and may lead the bank to require more money in coming months, analysts said.
Yesterday’s action didn’t furnish the New York-based bank with new money, although it cuts expenses by eliminating dividends on preferred stock. Instead, it converted preferred shares into common equity, which absorbs the first hit in the event of further losses, at an above-market-value price of $3.25. The stock, which has fallen 78 percent since the beginning of the year, closed in New York trading yesterday at $1.50, its lowest since November 1990.
Vikram Pandit, 52, Citigroup’s chief executive officer, told investors yesterday that increasing tangible common equity to as much as $81 billion from $29.7 billion should “take the confidence issues off the table,” regarding the company’s ability to absorb losses. Still, Citigroup, which lost $27.7 billion in 2008, is expected to lose $1.24 billion in the first six months of 2009, according to the average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
“There’s no difference here,” said Christopher Whalen, co- founder of Institutional Risk Analytics, a Torrance, California- based risk-advisory firm. “It won’t fix revenue, and you’re still going to see loss rates.”
One immediate change from yesterday’s announcement was that the value of the government’s investment fell by more than half. The government said it would convert as much as $25 billion of its preferred stock to common shares for a 36 percent stake in the bank. At yesterday’s closing price of $1.50, that investment is worth about $11.5 billion. Citigroup has a stock market value of $8.2 billion today.
‘Ripped Off’
“Taxpayers are being ripped off,” Congressman Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, said in a statement. “The only thing worse than nationalizing a bank is to pay for the entire bank and only get one-third of it.”
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s analysts, led by Richard Ramsden, recommended that investors avoid Citigroup shares because “it is unclear whether this is the last round of capital restructuring, which means that existing equity may be further diluted in the future.” The analysts also noted that the bank’s new 4.3 percent ratio of tangible common equity to total assets falls to just 2 percent if deferred tax assets are excluded. Those will only become valuable if and when the bank returns to profitability.
Ratings Cut
Rather than boosting confidence, the move led Moody’s Investors Service to cut its senior debt rating for Citigroup to A3 from A2 and prompted Standard & Poor’s to change its outlook on the bank’s debt to “negative” from “stable.”
“Citi will face a tough credit cycle in the next two years, which will likely result in weak and volatile earnings,” S&P analyst Scott Sprinzen wrote in a statement. “We cannot rule out the possibility that further government support may prove necessary.”
Some analysts and investors were more heartened by yesterday’s news. David Trone, an analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller in New York, said the transaction fortifies the bank’s balance sheet, and he expects the stock to rise back to $3 “once the emotion of the moment passes.”
William Isaac, chairman of Secura Group LLC and a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said that while he hopes yesterday’s action is enough, the government may need to put in more money if the economy continues to deteriorate.
“If they need more money we should put it in,” Isaac said. “The best approach is to do what you think will work as you go along.”
Preferred Stock
In its first two efforts to rescue Citigroup, the U.S. Treasury provided $45 billion by buying preferred stock and joined the Federal Reserve and FDIC in agreeing to guarantee the bank against all but $29 billion of losses on a $301 billion portfolio of assets. Yesterday, the Treasury, as well as other preferred stockholders including the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, gave up their dividends and agreed to take common stock at $3.25 a share.
“The administration and the past administration have tried so many different ways that we can only hope and pray that this time they get it right,” said Charles Rangel, a Democratic congressman from New York who serves as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “It seems like with the banks it is a never-ending thing.”
Conversion Price
The government was in a near-impossible position trying to set a price to convert the stock, said Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
“You can’t massively overpay because the taxpayer will scream, but you can’t pay market price because that doesn’t give them enough tangible common equity,” Plath said. “The value of the equity is close to zero, but you can’t let it fall to zero because so much of it is owned by private money outside the U.S.”
Institutional Risk Analytics’ Whalen said the government’s efforts are mainly protecting those who hold Citigroup bonds, which he said are widely held by other financial institutions and foreign governments.
“The taxpayer is funding the operating loss and protecting the bondholders,” Whalen said. “The subsidy for the banks will become one of the biggest lines in Washington’s budget.”
Boon for Bondholders
Citigroup’s $3 billion of senior unsecured bonds that mature in May 2018 rose to 87 cents on the dollar yesterday from 85 cents a day earlier, according to data reported on Trace, the real-time bond-price reporting service of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Whalen said it would be better if the government organized bondholders in Citigroup and insurer American International Group Inc., which got a $150 billion U.S. bailout, and reach a deal to convert some debt to equity.
Standard & Poor’s, in cutting its outlook on Citigroup’s debt to negative, said even bondholders may be affected.
“Debt holders could eventually be required to participate in further government-led restructuring actions,” S&P said.

 

[epico696]

Se gli obb.sti senior..dovranno rispondere per salvare la baracca......secondo me il 29 è alle porte.
idea personale