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’All is for the best in the best of all possible Commerzbanks
Shares in Commerzbank were up about 11 per cent at pixel time. It’s generally a strong day for European banks as well, but we suppose (bemusedly) it’s following this statement from the German lender on its €5.3bn capital hole…
Euro banks are not very popular…
Major fallers across the continent (NOT just the banking sector):
UniCredit, of course, has already unveiled a €7.5bn cash call. It would seem that the guessing now is who is next.
A snap observation from Chintan Joshi at Nomura:
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Anglo American acquires Oppenheimer family’s 40 per cent interest in De Beers for $5.1bn — statement.
- RBS books additional charges against Greek debt holdings;
Another way to impair Greek bonds
Another way to swap them too?
Interesting fact: Commerzbank’s Greek bond exposure is almost all positioned in maturities after 10 years. Ostensibly, the current IIF financing offer for Greece targets bonds maturing before 2020.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Commerzbank profits wiped about by €760m Greek impairment hit; but loan provisions elsewhere show improvement– statement and report.
- HSBC sells US credit card and retail services business to Capital One;
Eurocrashing [updated]
Europe’s biggest fallers at pixel time (via Reuters). Notice a trend?
The Italian 10-year bond yield is above 5.5 per cent. Its Spanish peer is closing in on 6 per cent…
Updated — Spanish 10-year through 6 per cent.
Top of the Greek bond exposure pops [updated]
Emphasis on the popping. Worth listening to this as you scroll down the below table, compiled by a clearly nostalgic Laurent Fransolet of Barclays Capital…
None of the exposure is surprising,
German exposure to Greece, a bad bank tale [updated]
Alternative title: Moralrisikodämmerung.*
From a Fitch report just out on Wednesday — a twist on the big contagion story of German banking exposure to a Greek default:
Substantial amounts of Greece sovereign exposure lies not with the commercial banks but with KfW (‘AAA’/‘F1+’),
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Glencore to raise $9bn-$11bn in London IPO — statement.
- BP and Rosneft extend share swap deadline to May 16 — statement.
- Commerzbank prices cash call at €4.25 a share — statement.
Commerzbank burns some fingers
If you’re wondering how to scare a short seller then look no further than Commerzbank’s mind-numbingly complex €11bn cash call.
Either by accident or design (probably design) its structure has caused a measure of discomfort those short of Commerzbank stock.
Commerzbank’s mind-numbing cash call
Is this the most complicated cash call of recent times ever?
Judge for yourself.
Presenting Commerzbank’s €11bn capital increase (click the image for the term sheet):
Now if we are reading this correctly — something that’s not helped by the fact you can’t access the press release from outside Germany for some arcane regulatory reason — Commerzbank is planning to do the following:
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Commerzbank to raise €11bn via mandatory convertible notes and rights issue – report (statement cannot be accessed from the UK).
- Intesa Sanpaolo announces €5bn capital increase — statement.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Commerzbank returns to profit; posts net income of €1.4bn in 2010 – statement.
- Rio Tinto receives $340m Imersys offer for talc assets — statement.
- AP Moller-Maersk says 2011 weak for tanker business — statement.
Commerzbank’s complicated capital boost
Commerzbank mystery, solved.
From a Thursday morning statement:
Commerzbank plans measure to optimise its capital structure
Today, as a step in its capital management, Commerzbank AG has provided
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- Tesco reports disappointing UK sales over Christmas; blames weather– statement.
- Commerzbank planning 10 per cent equity capital increase — statement.
- Ashtead and TVH join forces to make 115p a share offer for Lavendon Group — statement.
The end of the taxpayer put
Even more on the corporate vs sovereign credit theme, this time from a banking perspective.
RBS has been looking at Commerzbank and its CDS since the EU bail-in proposals were unveiled last week.
We noted before that the price has blown out,
Commerzbank fact du jour
On a day when the Markit iTraxx Senior Financials CDS index traded at a wide not seen since March 2009…
Commerzbank CDS spreads traded at their widest since 2002 on Monday, according to Markit (click chart to enlarge):
Worst banking conspiracy ever
Have you ever heard of Inter-Alpha? We hadn’t until this weekend, although we tend not to frequent the conspiracy sites that lump it in alongside the world’s Bilderbergs, Rothschilds, and the Stonecutters.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Standard Chartered rights issue take-up 98.5 per cent – statement.
- Gazprom Q2 ’10 income 169.7bn rbls vs poll 163.5bn – report.
- Commerzbank targets 2014 risk weighted assets of €300bn – statement.
Stressful European bank spoilers
Not more European bank stress-test leaks. Although at least this particular indiscretion, centred on German banks, hints at how the actual tests will be received.
As Bloomberg reported on Tuesday:
What’s with Hannover and Generali De?
The (very) early price action in most of the financials in the BaFin naked shorts ban:
Related link:
How the Wolf Pack is (already) playing the BaFin ban – FT Alphaville
Forget ‘bonus rage’, go to (a British) court
While US investment bankers face congressional grillings and “bonus rage”, Britain – somewhat ironically – is looming as a shining centre of bonus redemption for litigious bankers.
Even as the UK attempts to halt a bonus culture that politicians blame for helping to create the credit crisis, imposing a 50 per cent “super tax” on bank bonuses over £25,000,
Eurozone bank CDS goes squeaky-pop
Eurozone financial CDS has well and truly tightened from last week’s blow-outs:
Click to enlarge the chart, provided by Markit. Sovereign CDS is also squeaking back.
Spare a thought for those who bought protection late last week…
Who’s exposed to Greece, bank edition
Europe’s banks are slowly fessing up to the size of their Greek exposure.
First up have been the French.
Societe Generale revealed a €3bn exposure on Wednesday, largely down to its 54 per cent stake in Greek bank Geniki.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Thursday,
- BNP Paribas reveals €5bn Greece sovereign exposure – statement.
- Commerzbank reports first profit in seven quarters – statement.
- Deutsche Bank ups stake in China’s Hua Xia bank to 19.9 per cent – statement.
CDS report: Confidence ebbing away
Markit’s Gavan Nolan wrote this CDS report
European credit markets experienced a difficult afternoon as the weakness of the US consumer became apparent. The Markit iTraxx Europe index finished the day over 3bp wider at 86.5bp,
Commerzbank doubts early profit
Commerzbank damped talk of an early end to its losses following its takeover of Dresdner Bank, reiterating that it would be profitable by 2011 at the latest but raising its estimates of the synergies it would generate from Germany’s biggest banking merger.
Welcome to the sub-marine crisis
On Thursday, AP Moller Maersk — the world’s top container shipping company — spooked shipping industry watchers when it reported deeper than expected losses of $706m for the nine months to September,
Lloyds, RBS and state aid
The UK’s two part-nationalised banks, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, are under pressure again on Wednesday morning as the market continues to fret about potential state aid remedies.
Since ING, the Dutch financial services group,