June, 2011
The International Monoline Fund
Odd story in the Guardian on Friday:
Under its acting chief, the American John Lipsky, the IMF has taken a more hardline stance. The fund warned the Germans in recent weeks that it would withhold urgently needed funds and trigger a Greek sovereign default unless Berlin stopped delaying and pledged firmly that it would come to Greece’s rescue…
UK M&A wrap
John Whittaker has responded to the stake-building efforts of Warren James Holdings.
The billionaire property developer has been able to declare his £96m offer for film studio Pinewood Sheppterton unconditional as to acceptances on Friday morning,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Friday,
- The pain in Spain … continues.
- African land grab, acres for a bottle of Scotch.
- The zombie economies are coming!
- DSK didn’t want to miss his Merkel meeting.
- Some fun with peak oil.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Friday’s FT,
Mark Mazower: A sorry end to too fleeting a Greek dream
These are painful days for anyone who loves Greece, writes Mazower, professor of history at Columbia University.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Prada raises $2.1bn in IPO; shares priced at foot of range – report.
- Nat Rothschild’s Vallares raises £1.35bn; places 133m shares at £10 each — statement.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Abnormal Returns has been running a great desert island blogger quiz series this week.
- JP Morgan Chase and the case for the defence (re capital requirements).
- Explaining the Fed/ECB divide.
LA Conduit-fidential [updated]
The Los Angeles Times and the Bond Buyer have done some interesting reporting in the last three weeks, shedding light on a dark corner of the municipal markets: conduit bonds.
What are conduit bonds? Not for the first time,
Introducing Alphachat, the FT Alphaville podcast
We’re trying something new here at FT Alphaville, and like all our experiments we have no idea how this one will turn out.
We’ve started a podcast, which you’ll find below alongside a bio of our guest,
The real risk to Greece is Greece
An obvious point maybe, but one worth making, reckons JPMorgan’s David Mackie.
He thinks we should move on from worrying about the dispute between Germany and the ECB on Greek Bailout II and instead focus on what’s happening in Athens.
Whittaker faces fight for Pinewood
Billionaire property developer John Whittaker will not be amused.
Someone is trying to throw a spanner in the works of his 200p a share bid for James Bond and Harry Potter film studio Pinewood-Shepperton.
It’s a fab time for a Greek buyback, says Goldman
Amid the steaming wreckage of the Greek bailout on Thursday — a little Goldman hopefulness on what to do next. Not a rollover. Not a restructuring, technically.
A ‘managed deleveraging’.
Actually what the bank’s analyst,
Paulson, lumbered with Sino-Forest
FT AlphaTilt, the swashbuckling blogging portmanteau, noticed on June 2 that Paulson & Co was listed as owning by proxy 14.13 per cent of the outstanding shares in Sino-Forest Corporation.
The timber firm’s troubles were more bad news for the world’s third-largest hedge fund,
And all the liquidity in all the world…
Ongoing Greek turmoil. The end of QE2. Slowing growth. An oversupply of credit. A US default.
The list of current developments to keep investors up at night could go on.
No surprise then, that the dollar’s been rallying on the back of risk-reversal — a development which in itself could feed through to plenty of other asset classes.
Glencore, an overvalued Japanese throughput manager
“World’s biggest IPO”. “Unquantifably unique”. “No natural like-for-like”. “A trading house like no other”.
Whatever.
Analysts at MF Global are not buying the PR spin.
Glencore might be the emperor of the commodity world,
Markets Live transcript 16 Jun 2011
Markets Live chat transcript for the chat ending at 11:44 on 16 Jun 2011. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT bryce.elder NHWhat’s the Greek for hello? NHanyone know?
The lesser-spotted variegated burdensharing for senior bondholders
So Ireland has been busy threatening to throw senior bank debt investors under a bus. Again.
Earlier this week, Irish finance minister Michael Noonan announced plans to force “substantial” burdensharing for investors in the senior debt of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide .
UK retail recession watch: Royal Wedding hangover
UK retail sales figures are out and they have managed to undershoot expectations.
The City was braced for a fall for May as consumers put their hands back in their pockets after splashing out in April (because of the good weather,
Gold, Myrrh and the Confoederatio Helvetica Franc
The Swiss National Bank kept interest rates unchanged as expected on Thursday, saying it would leave the target rate for three-month Libor at 0.0-0.75 per cent, ideally at the lower range of around 0.25 per cent.
The debt dark side
Picturesque reflection du jour on Thursday’s twin threats to Greek debt and European senior unsecured bank bonds, courtesy of an IFR analyst:
Quite.
Risk remains… off
More of the same on Thursday morning as commentators set nerves on edge by referring to Greece as the eurozone’s Lehman moment.
And so, the euro has taken further punishment, breaking its 100-day moving average for the first time since February.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- Paulson, planked.
- The great comic books bubble of 1993 — or, the permanent scars of manias.
- Yet another non-credit event debt forgiveness plan for Greece.
- No,
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
John Gapper: Why Bono didn’t save Spider-Man
Spider-Man at last opened on Tuesday night on Broadway, having already been playing to audiences for six months of “previews” that produced disastrously bad notices,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Prada narrows price range for Hong Kong IPO — report.
- Bill Gammell to step down as chief executive of Cairn Energy — statement.
- Capital One bids for HSBC’s US credit card business — report.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Should the Fed have an inflation target?
- In praise of ringfencing the retail operatons of UK banks.
- Why such praise is foolish.
- 3-2-1 crack spread!
- The case for leaving work on the trading floor by 3pm.
Risk… off
EURUSD below its 100-day moving average (you can guess why):
RTRS-EURO POSTS BIGGEST PERCENTAGE DECLINE VS DOLLAR SINCE AUGUST, 2010
On the flip side, there’s a real plunge in oil on the strengthening dollar.