[FONT="]Barclays hit by City talk it may need £17bn more capital[/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]GRULTD0020100119e61j003ju[/FONT][FONT="]
Nick Fletcher
guardian.co.uk
605 Words
19 January 2010
Guardian Unlimited
grultd
Guardian & Observer - Print and Online
CTGGRO
English
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2010. All rights reserved[/FONT]
[FONT="]Banks are under the cosh at the moment, and in particular Barclays on suggestions it may need an equity issue[/FONT]
[FONT="]Banks are under the cosh at the moment, and in particular Barclays on suggestions it may need an equity issue.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Jonathan Pierce, the respected analyst at one of Barclays' advisors Credit Suisse, said under the new Basel rules on capital requirements, the bank might need to raise £17bn over the next three years. In a note entitled Does it need more capital? Pierce keeps his recommendation on Barclays at outperform although "this is a relative call rather than a particularly upbeat view on Barclays' shares in isolation." He has cut his target price from 400p to 350p. Here are his thoughts on the bank's capital position:[/FONT]
[FONT="]Our numbers suggest a potentially sizeable capital deficit: We believe Barclays equity tier 1 ratio is currently 9.6%, but 5.0% on new BIS proposals. An immediate move to 8.0% would require £17bn of equity on our figures, although in practice, the bank has up to three years to fund this gap.[/FONT]
[FONT="]It can be managed: there is scope for the proposals to change, but we believe many will stick. However, by selling 50% of its BlackRock stake, and capping growth and dividends, we think the bank can manage this internally.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Managing capital internally might, though, be sub-optimal given the growth opportunities, and we would not rule out an equity issue at some point. Barclays will likely wait for more clarity, but either way this is an interesting juncture for the bank, leaving a period of uncertainty and one in which dividends will be capped at 1p per quarter, in our view.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Overall he remained caution on all the UK banks:[/FONT]
[FONT="]This year more than ever, we believe regulation and politics will determine share price performance. In the last month alone, the FSA and BIS have published 500 pages of text, some of which has still to be absorbed by the market (e.g. large exposure rules). Given this, we simply don't believe that share prices should be factoring in distributable double-digit return on tangible equity, particularly with the central bank calling for further equity issuance, and the government running a 12% deficit.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Barclays is currently down 7.45p at 310.3p. Meanwhile HSBC has lost 15.5p to 683.5p after Ian Gordon at Exane BNP Paribas downgraded from neutral to underperform with a 700p target price. He said:[/FONT]
[FONT="]After a negative stance before the March 2009 earnings miss and £12.5bn rights issue, we have been neutral on HSBC for eight months during which its relative performance has been just that, outperforming the sector by 3%. We now downgrade to underperform, but in truth, this reflects the emergence of genuine value opportunities elsewhere, rather than any material deterioration in the pace of HSBC's own recovery.[/FONT]
[FONT="]HSBC's outperformance during the first half of the financial crisis was driven by its "signature strengths" of capital and liquidity. The latter has now become a millstone during what we see as an extended sub-par recovery in which an overwhelming desire to avoid policy mistakes will hold interest rates low. Our view is non-consensual, in that we anticipate no change in US rates until the second half of 2011, (crucially implying no relief from liability spread pressure in Hong Kong) and no change in rates in UK or Europe until 2012. Balance cheet management affords only partial relief.[/FONT]
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mi piace molto la scadenza 2019, e la cedola (non c'e' rischio call), sono anche cumulative. Detto questo non conosco la societa'. La 7.25 si prende a 90, l'altra a 111.
