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’Watch this space: Pru halts Friday HK trading (updated)
All eyes on Prudential and its planned $35.5bn takeover of AIA, the Asian business of US insurer AIG, on Friday.
Here’s the Pru’s Friday statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange:
Suspension of Trading
At the request of Prudential plc (the “Company”),
Pru tries to renegotiate AIA price
Prudential is trying to renegotiate the $35.5bn price tag on the Asian businesses of AIG in a last-ditch attempt to win the support of some of its biggest investors and head off a disastrous “no” vote on its planned takeover of AIA,
Is Pru/AIA off?
Prudential shares have spiked on Thursday morning:
The reason is speculation that its ‘transformational’ (buy highly risky) acquisition of AIA is off:
UK’S PRUDENTIAL SHARES RISE 7 PCT ON TALK AIA DEAL MAY BE OFF – TRADERS AND BROKERS
UK’S PRUDENTIAL SAYS HAS NO COMMENT ON MARKET RUMOUR AND SPECULATION
Due to the way this transaction has been structured (it’s a scheme of arranagement),
AIA chief spits dummy over Pru deal
With CEOs like these, Prudential certainly doesn’t need any more critics.
Here, hot off the FT’s presses, or rather, computers, on Wednesday, is news that doesn’t augur well for one of the biggest insurance sector deals this decade:
Pru rights issue: the details
Not before time…
Prudential – finally and at long last – announced its much delayed $20bn rights issue on Monday morning (UK time), allowing Tidjane Thiam, chief executive, “to make the financial case for Pru’s $35.5bn takeover”
Pru/AIA – a whiff of death
The price action in Prudential shares on Thursday morning.
Clearly the market is delivering its verdict on the likelihood of the $35.5bn acquisition of AIG’s Asian arm going ahead.
The thinking,
Is Pru/AIA dead in the water? (updated)
That’s the question the market will be asking on Wednesday morning, after Prudential was forced to delay the UK’s biggest ever corporate fundraising (a £14bn rights issue) because of disagreement with the FSA over capital.
The Goldman variations, annotated
After a statement of the aria at the beginning of the piece, there are thirty variations. The variations do not follow the melody of the aria, but rather use its bass line and chord progression. Because of this the work is often said to be a chaconne.
Maiden Lane goes public
Here’s something to keep you busy over Easter break — 161-pages of CUSIPS and principal balances for the securities held by the Federal Reserve’s three Maiden Lane special purpose vehicles.
As a reminder,
CDS report: A turn in an era?
Events in history come in big and small packages. Sometimes these moments come as flashpoints; sometimes they are more subtle. Two of today’s headlines seem to be small and subtle shifts inside of a larger era in financial markets history. First,
Are AIG’s Asian sell-offs just cursed?
Given the unfortunate execution so far of the Pru’s bid for American International Assurance, it’s hard not to wonder whether AIG’s attempts to sell its Asian operations are, well, cursed.
And as the following report from NY Times illustrates,
CDS report: Storm over Greece subsides
European credit markets started the week on a positive note, defying lacklustre stock markets and continuing the rally from last week. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was 3.5bp tighter at 74.5bp,
Pru/AIA – “finely balanced”
Merrill Lynch is one of the few brokers able to comment on the $35.5bn Prudential/AIA deal and Blair Stewart and his team are taking full advantage.
They have published another interesting report on the deal this Monday morning.
Dead kitten bounce
Meow.
CDS report: The natural order restored?
Markit’s Gavan Nolan wrote this CDS report
The sovereign CDS market was the driving force behind the credit market rally today, with a combination of technical and fundamental factors helping spreads to tighten.
Prudential – Day II
Oh dear. This wasn’t in the script.
Prudential’s share price on Tuesday morning:
That takes the share price decline since the “transformational” deal to buy AIG’s Asian assets was announced on Monday morning,
CDS report: SovX and Main converge
Markit’s Gavan Nolan wrote this CDS report
Financial markets started the month on a strong note, with both credit and equity extending Friday’s rally. The Markit iTraxx Europe was about 2bp tighter at 83.5bp,
Fee bonanza
From Reuters:
PRUDENTIAL TO PAY UP TO $735m IN FEES FOR ITS $21BN RIGHTS ISSUE – SOURCES
And the underwriters are: Credit Suisse, HSBC and JP Morgan Cazenove.
According to Reuters that breaks down as a charge of 3 per cent,
The Pru and the Great British Peseta
Nick Beecroft, Senior FX Consultant at Saxo Bank, comments on sterling’s collapse:
Monday morning we have witnessed what can justifiably called the beginnings of Sterling’s collapse. So long as the markets could harbour some hope that the next government,
Lest you forget the black hole that is AIG…
AIG, the insurer that has gobbled up around $180bn in taxpayer cash, on Friday reported its results for the fourth quarter and full-year 2009.
Depending on your perspective, the results were either a significant improvement compared with the same period a year ago or quite irksome indeed,
The Maiden (Lanes) beauty contest
Compare and contrast.
From the FT — one maiden (I):
The US Federal Reserve is sitting on significant paper losses on the real estate assets it acquired in the Bear Stearns rescue, with much of the red ink coming from debt used to back some of the most highprofile buy-out deals of the bubble years.
Dead deals, or, AIG in pics
Schedule A to the Amended Shortfall Agreement, once redacted to the nines, now unveiled, means we don’t have to wait until 2018 to get an inside peak into just which CDO deals, and banks, the US government helped via its bail-out of mega-insurerer AIG.
Schedule A to Amended Shortfall Agreement
Lex counsels us that the accusations of a “backdoor bail-out” of AIG towards the end of 2008 are misplaced.
First, US banks had already been subject to a high-profile, front door bail-out. By November,
[Redacted]
Using the word `Redacted’ about 840 times in a single 16-page document is begging for trouble.
The above is an excerpt from the Shortfall Agreement between AIG and Maiden Lane III, filed to the SEC in March 2009.
Does Hank Greenberg read the news?
Having been CEO of AIG since the 1960s, only to resign in 2005 amidst a major accounting scandal, you could perhaps forgive him if he doesn’t.
Maurice `Hank’ Greenberg spoke with the Wall Street Journal this weekend past,
AIG and the Fed, not above water but drowning?
Thursday’s story, that the Timothy Geithner-headed Federal Reserve Bank of New York tried to cover up certain details of mega-insurer AIG’s bailout in 2008, has finally prompted some responses from US Treasury — where Geithner is now head.
How thick is Tim Geithner’s skin?
The AIG CDS story has been smoldering for so long now that most ordinary mortals are left either confused or bemused, or both.
What is it that Janet Tavaoli keeps rabbiting on about? Are those Bloomberg guys obsessed,
(Not so) deceitful journalism (updated)
Interesting story published earlier on from the New York Times’ Dealbook site on Thursday:
Starting in November 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York under Timothy Geithner began urging American International Group,
‘More bad news’ on bank CDO exposures to come, BofAML says
FT Alphaville wrote in October 2008 that, by and large, banks’ holdings of synthetic corporate CDOs had yet to be written down. Fast forward to December 2009, and it looks like the same might still be true for the majority of those holdings.