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’[Something for the weekend] Life’s a beach (or not)
Life’s a beach (or not)
Ah, the holiday season. Dreams of surf, sea, sand – and soggy share prices, or so it must seem to the bewildered shareholders in Thomas Cook. The travel agent’s “amendment to bank facilities”
[Something for the weekend] An irrelevant bargain for Branson
When you’re short of money, the odd £747m always comes in useful, but it doesn’t go far these days. It’s enough to finance the UK state spending machine for about nine hours. The government had spent more than the proceeds from the sale of Northern Rock before it could read the reaction to it in Friday’s papers.
The Bank of Beard (or Northern Virgin)
Is the sale of Northern Rock to the Grinning Pullover a deal for UK taxpayers?
Chancellor George Osborne says it is:
The sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money is an important first step in getting the British taxpayer out of the business of owning banks.
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Societe Generale says it will struggle to reach 2012 profit target because of Greece/economic back drop — statement.
- Northern Rock announces half year loss (underlying) of £78.8m — statement.
Northern Crock(ed) liability management
Bad bank, bad behaviour?
A timeline of recent events at debt-ish Northern Rock Asset Management:
June 8, 2011 – We refer to the PROVIDE GRAPHITE 2006-1 Credit Linked Notes (the Notes) issued by Graphite Mortgages plc (the Issuer),
The Bank of England’s very own, very secret liquidity
Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) — or short-term liquidity programmes courtesy of national European central banks — has made headlines recently.
Not least because Irish banks are supposedly using over €50bn of the stuff.
Abbey Alliance & Bungle Bank Plc
Why is Banco Santander looking to float 20 per cent of its UK business at a much reduced valuation of £16bn?
The answer is because it needs to, reckons Andrew Lim of Matrix:
Our own view is that Santander needs to do this deal to improve Basel III capital ratios relative to European peers.
A rocky road to yield
A data point, in the relentless search for yield.
The bottom tranches of Granite — the mortgage securitisation vehicle of Northern Rock — crossed the 50 price level for the first time last week. This is,
Crock regulation
From Britain’s financial regulator on Tuesday (translation ours):
The Financial Services Authority has fined David Jones, former finance director (FD) of Northern Rock PLC (NR) five bob and given him a spank.
Flowers pops up in UK mutual land
Compared to those high-flying days of yesteryear, über-deal maker Chris Flowers has been rather quiet – and we’d venture, not overly successful – as of late.
Among the more notable in a series of rather underwhelming deals have been his huge investment,
The return of the “other” Northern Rock
It’s amazing what you can find on the intraweb. Take this cached page from London-based PR Fishburn Hedges on an assignment for buy-to-let mortgage lender Paragon:
The challenge
Paragon raises its funds in the wholesale market,
Northern Rock, blast from the (misreported) past
A former deputy chief executive of Northern Rock has just been slapped with a £504,000 fine by the FSA.
The reason?
David Baker was aware Northern Rock’s Debt Management Unit was fudging its mortgage arrears figure,
FSA slams Northern Rock for misreporting mortgage arrears
The world’s toughest regulator just got even tougher.
On Tuesday, the FSA announced it had banned the former deputy chief executive and the credit director of Northern Rock for misreporting nothing less than ‘mortgage arrears’.
[Darling: Budget Highlights 2010] Reforming financial services — some details
FT Alphaville finally got its hands on a nice, fat hard-copy of the UK’s 2010 Budget on Wednesday, freshly couriered over from Westminster.
We were intrigued by this section of the Budget Report, on ‘reforming financial services’ (emphasis in the original):
Northern Crock: No news is good news
Or so say RBS analysts, in their note on the Crock’s loss-cutting results out on Wednesday (emphasis ours):
No new information that would move the cash bond prices here which in our view is good news.
Cracks in the Granite
Two things happened on Tuesday in the world of Granite — Northern Rock’s massive master trust mortgage securitisation vehicle.
First, the UK Treasury finalised its planned restructuring of Northern Rock.
Northern Rock shares ‘valueless’
An independent valuer said on Tuesday that shareholders of UK lender Northern Rock should not be entitled to any compensation after their investments were wiped out when the bank was nationalised two years ago.
CDS report: Credit rally loses momentum
Gavan Nolan of Markit wrote this CDS report
European credit indices widened for the third day running as the long rally showed signs that it was losing momentum. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was traded wider than 90bp,
UBS banker to succeed Kingman at UKFI
The appointment of Robin Budenberg, a seasoned UBS banker, as the next chief executive of UK Financial Investments, is expected to be confirmed on Wednesday, along with details of a plan to carve up nationalised mortgage lender Northern Rock into “good”
Brussels set to pass Northern Rock plan
The European Commission is next week expected to approve a radical restructuring of UK lender Northern Rock, paving the way for the break-up and sale of the nationalised bank. Northern Rock’s proposal to split itself into two,
Applegarth to advise Apollo
Adam Applegarth, the former chief executive of Northern Rock, has joined Apollo Global Management as a senior adviser to its European distressed debt fund, becoming the latest fallen corporate boss to seek refuge in private equity.
UK mutuals urge on Northern Rock
UK building societies are urging the government to consider returning Northern Rock, the nationalised bank, to the mutual sector when it is sold off. The Building Societies Association cited an academic report that makes a case for converting troubled banks into mutual organisations.
UK banks face curbs on stakes in lenders
UK banks will be barred from buying the nationalised lender Northern Rock or taxpayer’s stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and RBS if they have big existing operations in the UK, chancellor Alistair Darling signalled on Thursday night.
Hybrid security (or not)
The market for the hybrid debt of British banks was rather roiled last week
First there was news that Northern Rock would be deferring payment of its suboordinated debt coupons. Then then there was a mass-downgrade of the hybrid debt of banks including Lloyds and RBS,
Northern Rock defers payments
Northern Rock has halted payments on some of its subordinated debt to help conserve capital – its first deferred coupon payments since nationalisation. The UK bank, which recently reported first-half losses of £725m,
Confirmation: Crock is crock
No one can really say they didn’t see this coming.
After news earlier this month that Northern Rock is still loss-making, the nationalised lender declared on Tuesday:
In this context,
S&P downgrades UK bank debt
UK banks with government stakes saw a sharp downgrading of chunks of their debt on Tuesday after S&P concluded the government’s sweeping powers could harm bondholders. The downgrades followed the government’s decision earlier this year to suspend interest payments due on some so-called “tier two”
Northern Rock sale to be delayed
Alistair Darling, UK chancellor, is expected to delay the sale of the healthy parts of Northern Rock until after the general election, it emerged on Tuesday, as the nationalised bank announced half-year losses of almost £725m.