L'IR di Erste Bank è stato prontissimo nel rispondere alla mia e-mail: purtroppo la sua risposta costringe a rivedere in negativo l'interpretazione che abbiamo sempre dato ai prospetti delle emissioni austriache..
Ma procediamo con ordine.
La mia mail al responsabile IR di Erste (nella quale, come noterete, mi sono "allargato" un po'
) diceva questo:
"Dear Mr. Sommerauer,
I am a private investor, writing also on behalf of some 50 colleagues: we are specialized in subordinated bonds and we all have Erste "vintage" T1 bonds in our portfolio.
And I add: unfortunately...
We were astonished by Erste Bank's december 9th announcement that no coupons will be paid on UT2 and hybrid instruments.
Also, we could not understand according to which prospectus clauses Erste Bank is entitled to skip the coupon payment.
Let me consider, for instance, the bond with isin XS0021538152.
The prospectus says (pages 40-41) that the bank will pay the coupon unless:
a)the so called "Distributable Funds" are insufficient.
However, it seems to us that Erste Bank has plenty of "Distributable Funds" available. Hence we must conclude this is not the reason allowing the bank to skip the coupon.
or:
b)Erste Bank "would be limited in making such payments" because it does not meet the capital ratios.
Considering the brilliant outcome of the recent Comprehensive Assessment exercise, we cannot understand how Erste Bank could be subject to such a limitation.
In consideration of the above, we would really appreciate your clarifying on what basis the coupon skip is justified: is this for one of the above described reasons or for any other reason?
We thank you very much in advance for your reply.
Kind regards,
etc. etc.
Stamane Mr. Sommerauer mi ha risposto così:
"Dear Mr "Rottweiler" 
,
thank you for your mail. I can provide you with the following explanation: we do not have sufficient distributable funds as defined by the Austrian Companies Law (annual profit + free reserves). You are right that we have all kind of reserves in the balance sheet but these are statutory, committed or otherwise legally required reserves which management must not reallocate as it would require shareholder or regulatory approval or both, which based on informal discussions was unlikely. Hence we have to skip the coupon for one year, starting on 1 January 2015.
I also would like to point out, that we did a liability management exercise for the UT2 bonds in October in which we clearly stated that it cannot be ruled out that we have to skip the coupon for such instruments in 2015. Details are published on our website: Tender Offer 2014 | Erste Group.
I am sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and am happy to provide further clarifications, should they be required.
Best regards,
Thomas Sommerauer
Group Investor Relations
Erste Group "
Conclusioni:
1)come temevo, il nocciolo della questione sta nella definizione di "Distributable Funds", che non coincide con quella dei fondi elencati sotto questo termine nel bilancio, ma solo ad una sua piccola parte. Sembra quindi di capire che quando la banca chiude un bilancio in rosso l'attingere ai "Distributable Funds" accumulati in anni precedenti sia cosa alquanto problematica e apra la possibilità allo skip della cedola...
2)quanto indicato da Erste si applica necessariamente anche alle altre banche austriache (Raiffeisen, BaCa...). Viene così smentita un'affermazione più volte ripetuta su questo forum, secondo la quale con lo stato patrimoniale che presentano alcune banche austriache i "vecchi" T1 siano praticamente "obbligati" a pagare la cedola. Non è così. Se la banca ha pagato e pagherà, sarà solo perchè intende apparire investor friendly.
Questa risposta cambia in maniera sostanziale, almeno per me, il modo di guardare all'investimento nei T1 delle banche austriache: se rientrerò, sarà con una view completamente diversa dal passato.
