February, 2009
Buyers queue for Lehman HK assets
The liquidators of Lehman Brothers’ Hong Kong operations have been approached by more than 250 parties interested in the bank’s assets, it has been disclosed. The unexpected level of interest offers hope to thousands of creditors of the eight HK entities,
States agree €13bn HSH bail-out
Two federal states in northern Germany were on Tuesday forced to agree a €13bn ($17bn) bail-out of HSH Nordbank, the shipping financier, whose writedowns on complex structured credit products have crippled the regional lender and hit state budgets.
Police raid Anglo Irish HQ
Irish anti-fraud officers raided the Dublin headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged breaches of company law at the specialist property lender, which the Irish government nationalised last month.
Ford chiefs accept 30% pay cut
Bill Ford, chairman of Ford Motor, and Alan Mulally, the Detroit carmaker’s chief executive, have agreed to cut their salaries by 30% this year in a drive to show they are sharing in the sacrifices demanded from lower-level workers.
Overnight markets: Up and away
Asian stocks rallied on Wednesday from a five-year low, led by Japanese automakers and the region’s mining companies, as the yen weakened and commodity prices rose. Futures on the S&P 500 Index dropped 0.2% after the gauge jumped 4% in New York on Tuesday as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said there was a “reasonable prospect” the current recession will end this year.
[The Stanford Series] The Stanford campaign donations: pay ‘em back, not forward
Why are Stanford’s campaign donations going to charity asked Felix Salmon over at Market Movers last week.
I can see why politicians would want to distance themselves from Stanford. But if he really is a fraudster,
In defence of City felt-ery
A felt-collared source: a professional from the public relations industry (origin – N Miles, circa 1994)
The City PR industry got it in the neck on Monday night during a debate organised by the POLIS media think tank at the London School of Economics and chaired by that august institution’s director,
Treasury Select Committee – on tour
Coming to a town near you:
As part of its inquiry into the Banking Crisis the Treasury Committee will be making a series of regional visits to discuss the consequences of the financial crisis with members of the public.
S&P to kill banks?
CNBC is running an interesting piece of analysis by Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, titled “The Unintended Consequences of Gov’t Intervention”
Here’s the basic premise. Included in the recent American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was this line,
Latvia junked
Does the domino begin here? Poor Standards Standard & Poors junks Latvia (our emphasis):
Feb 24 – Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services today said it had lowered its sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Latvia to ‘BB+/B’ from ‘BBB-/A-3′ and removed the ratings from CreditWatch negative,
The United States Oil Fund mystery
Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix continues his crusade against the United States Oil Fund in his Tuesday note, an issue increasingly being picked up across the commodities and investment spectrum.
Jakob’s specific case is with the distortions being caused in the WTI market on account of the ETF’s size and predictability.
CDS report: Credit in the red again
Tales of woe abound and with that credit markets have once again taken a turn for the worse. A quick look at credit-derivative pricing screens showed big red flashes on Tuesday morning as equity markets plunged.
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville Tuesday morning,
- Royal Greenmail: the pension deficit letter.
- Sweden, revisited.
- Tier-1 vs TCE.
- The next nordic problem country: discussing Denmark.
- The Fed’s new data-fest.
Royal Greenmail
Below, via the Beeb, a full copy of the letter from Jane Newell, chairman of the trustees of the Royal Mail pension fund, written to the business secretary Lord Mandelson (emphasis ours).
Further to our meeting of 13th February,
Discussing Denmark
The Danish rarely cross our minds except in breakfast form, but here’s an exception (HT Credit Writedowns).
COPENHAGEN, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Small Danish bank Fionia (FIONIA.CO) said on Monday it ceded control to the Danish state in return for a 1 billion Danish crown ($169 million) capital injection that keeps it solvent.
Markets live transcript 24 Feb 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:12 on 24 Feb 2009. Participants in this chat were: Paul Murphy, FT (PM) Neil Hume, FT (NH) PM:Hi there – welcome to Markets Live
Knowing our banks, knowing yours
In their latest European banking note, Citi analysts (for, errr — cough cough –they should know) look at the claim “we are all Swedish now”. That, of course, being a reference to the Swedish banking crisis in which the state nationalised two of the country’s largest public banks for a number of years at the beginning of the 1990s.
This is why Tier 1 is irrelevent
UBS did a research note on bank nationalisation on Monday.
It made some very good points — for instance, the need for orderly resolution in any bank nationalisations (to avoid triggering a cascade of defaults etc.),
Get your financial crisis data here!
The Fed has launched a new web section amalgamating all the information you would ever need on the financial crisis (or so it claims) — the move perhaps focused on taking some of the heat off those freedom of information requests received from the likes of Bloomberg:
Charting the Dow
The DJIA – 1956 to 2009 (Click to enlarge – without the scribblings).
Related link:
Wall St tumbles; Dow hits lowest since ’97 – Reuters
Bove resurfaces…
Is this the first quote from veteran banking analyst Richard Bove at his new gig?
Rochdale Research’s Richard Bove said if the banking industry was nationalized for only 15 minutes, it would be enough time to wipe out the total investment of shareholders in the industry.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Tuesday,
- Don’t stress, US banks are in effect already nationalised.
- So is this meant to reassure us?
- The way to a hedge fund’s heart is through its prime broker.
- Citi rescue Part III:
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Tuesday’s FT,
Gideon Rachman ponders the question of a nuclear Iran
The world has already had to learn to live with a nuclear Pakistan and a nuclear North Korea.
Snap news
The latest on Tuesday,
- St James’s Place operating profit down 17 per cent — statement.
- Corporate: Akzo Nobel posts €1.1bn loss, Morgan Sindall 2008 profit before tax up 8 per cent, Lonmin reaches agreement with unions on restructuring,
What’s coming next, from the ‘Man Who Saw It Coming’
The litany of dire predictions for currencies, commodities and the global economy in general not only seems endless – it is getting more predictable by the day. That is because few pundits are making any waves – or money – out of playing Pollyanna,
Stocks fall on US bank plan
US stocks fell to their lowest level since 1997 on Monday as US authorities outlined plans to inject capital into troubled institutions and the government moved closer to taking a big stake – possibly up to 40% – in Citigroup.
AIG in talks for another bail-out
AIG is in talks with the US government over a new bail-out aimed at giving the stricken insurer, already 80% state-owned, fresh capital to absorb an expected Q4 loss and more time to sell assets. AIG could announce the plan as early as next week,
Rivals demand curbs on Citi
Citigroup’s rivals are lobbying the US government to shackle its investment banking business and international operations if the authorities nationalise or take a large stake in the troubled group. The calls come as talks progress on a plan for the US government to take a large stake – possibly of 40% – in return for throwing Citi its third lifeline in under four months.
Thain ordered to ‘name names’
A New York judge has ruled that John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, must name names in a state probe into bonuses paid out at Merrill in late December, just days before Bank of America acquired the firm.