A parte alcune imprecisioni (dove dice "unsecured" secondo me voleva dire "subordinated"
) segnalo un altro articolo interessante.
Citi, Wells May Offer Way to Profit, After All
Commentary by David Reilly
Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Uncertainty can cause chaos. It can also breed opportunity.
That’s especially true for banks. Questions about stress tests, and how the government will respond to them, have scuttled bank shares, especially those of the big, or final, four -- Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.
Some preferred stocks and trust preferred securities issued by these same banks have also been hammered. At least one trust preferred issued by Citigroup, for example, has fallen harder since the start of the month than the bank’s stock.
That may be an overreaction. Unlike stock, trust preferred securities are debt, pay a set interest rate and rank above common stock in the pecking order of who gets first dibs on a bank’s or company’s assets in the event of a collapse.
The securities’ swift decline is another sign the government needs to be clearer about its intentions if it hopes to calm financial markets. And it better do it quickly.
In the meantime, the carnage may present an opportunity. At least, that is, for investors with strong stomachs willing to gamble the government will stop short of all-out nationalization, or other moves that hurt more than just common stockholders.
One issue of Citigroup trust preferred securities, or Trups, traded yesterday at about $6, compared with a face value of $25. At that price, the security, which pays a 6.5 percent interest rate, now yields more than 25 percent.
13 Percent Yield
A trust preferred issued by Wells Fargo with a 6.25 percent interest rate traded yesterday at less than $12, giving it a yield of more than 13 percent.
Returns like that don’t come without big risks. Here they revolve around what the government will do to banks and who may get hurt. To understand the extent of the danger, an investor has to consider the totem pole-like ranking of claims on a bank’s assets.
The safest place is atop the pole, a perch occupied by senior debt holders. Just underneath are owners of unsecured debt, often bonds.
Lower down the pole comes equity. First is preferred stock, which has a set face value and pays a fixed dividend. At the very bottom are common stockholders who shoulder the most risk, especially from any government action.
Long Waits
In between the debt and equity sit the trust preferreds, a sort of hybrid. Technically, these securities are debt. A bank can’t stop paying interest on them. But it can postpone the payments for as long as five or 10 years.
The trust preferreds also have a final maturity date like other debt, meaning an investor will ultimately get paid back if the bank doesn’t fail. The maturities are usually 30 years or 60 years out, though, meaning an investor has a long wait.
One troubling possibility for investors is that the government could force banks to defer interest payments. The government might demand this because it wants banks to hold onto their cash, not pay it out to investors.
Citi and BofA, for example, could each generate about $7 billion in capital by doing this and also canceling dividends on preferred stock, according to a Feb. 17 report from research firm CreditSights.
Fortunately for trust preferred holders, postponed interest payments still have to be paid at some time in the future, with interest.
Even better, trust preferreds are higher on the totem pole than all preferred stock, including the government’s. So Uncle Sam would have to forgo his own dividend before the banks could put off paying the trust preferreds.
If the government doesn’t get paid, a political firestorm surely would erupt. At a Congressional hearing last week, chiefs of eight big banks trumpeted their payment of dividends to the Treasury on schedule.
Wiping Out Shareholders
Of course, nationalization or seizure of a bank could wipe out common and preferred stockholders and lead to a restructuring of debt. That could result in big losses for trust preferreds.
It’s questionable, though, whether the government would risk hurting debt holders. This might cause credit markets to again freeze, something the government wants to avoid.
The government may even be leery of hurting preferred stockholders since the decision to eliminate preferred dividends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to widespread market dislocation.
That decision, and ensuing losses among banks and mom-and- pop investors, “had a cascading effect all around the financial system,” said Pri de Silva, an analyst at CreditSights. Impairing trust preferreds could cause similar disruptions, especially since many insurance companies are big holders of the securities.
What about other options? Suppose the government pumped more money into troubled banks. That would probably dilute common stockholders. It wouldn’t necessarily hurt trust preferred holders. Any additional capital might even help them because a bank would be stronger.
So while some banks are zombies, there may be investment life left in a limb or two.
(David Reilly is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: David Reilly at
[email protected]
Last Updated: February 20, 2009 00:01 EST