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Government looks for big savings from subordinated debt-holders
03 April 2011 By Cliff Taylor and Pat Leahy
The government will impose huge haircuts on the holders of subordinated debt in the Irish banks, after the European Central Bank ruled out any move against senior bondholders in hectic discussions last week ahead of Thursday’s banking announcement.
There is €6.6 billion in subordinated, or junior, debt left in the Irish banks. Sources believe that an aggressive buyback programme may seek to recoup €5.5 billion or more of this sum, in an attempt to lower the bailout burden on the taxpayer.
Officials in the Department of Finance, the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) and the Central Bank are examining how a buy-back or debt-equity swap could be structured to achieve savings on this scale.
There was considerable interest from investors in an NTMA phone call held in the wake of the bailout announcement, during which the NTMA refused to rule out any kind of action against subordinated debt-holders. It is likely to wish to proceed on a voluntary basis, but with a structure which gives the debt holders a significant incentive to sign up.
The move comes after the ECB ruled out any move against senior bondholders, despite a major push from the government to be allowed to seek some savings here, even on a voluntary basis.
There were intensive contacts between the government, the ECB and the Central Bank on the issue, which lasted until shortly before the announcement was made.
After the ECB ruled out a general move against senior bondholders, the government sought to target the remaining senior bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide.
The Irish government argued that as these banks were insolvent targeting their bondholders for burden sharing would not cause fears of a wider move against senior bondholders here or elsewhere in Europe.
However, the ECB rejected the requests, causing considerable political embarrassment for the government, whose members had repeatedly called for burden sharing during the recent election.
Senior cabinet ministers now appear to accept that a general move against senior bondholders is impossible, but may still push the case for action against those who invested in Anglo and INBS and whose debt is now unguaranteed and unsecured.
However, the ECB has repeatedly ruled this out. Speaking to journalists in Dublin last week, Catherine Day - the most senior official in the European Commission - said that a decision on allowing burden sharing was for the ECB to make.
‘‘It’s part of a very complicated geometry, so everyone has different roles," Day said. ‘‘It is primarily for the ECB to Decide what is their position on that.
They are providing the liquidity to keep the Irish banks going so if they say that they would not be happy if the bondholders were asked to be part of the deal then they have all the means to prevail with their arguments, I would say."
The Sunday Business Post also understands that the troika of the EU, the IMF and the ECB argued in the final days before the bank deal that the Central Bank should adopt a figure high enough to close off the possibility of further losses emerging in future, barring an unexpected dramatic economic collapse.
For this reason, agreement was reached on adding a €5.3 billion buffer to the €18.7 billion hole discovered in the banks by the Central Bank and its consultants Blackrock.
Fears remain about the impact of the bank recapitalisation on the national debt, with stockbrokers estimating that the debt-to-GDP ratio could climb to between 115 per cent and 120 per cent in the next two to three years, a dangerously high level.
Stockbroking firm NCB said this made it likely that Ireland would not be able to re-enter normal borrowing markets in 2012 or 2013, and that it thus might be rolled from its current bailout into the new general EU bailout fund, which is due to commence in 2013.
Meanwhile, exchequer figures due to be published tomorrow are expected to show that the tax take for the first three months of the year was largely in line with expectations.
Government looks for big savings from subordinated debt-holders | The Post