Posts tagged 'Real Estate'

Quality time with the ailing Dutch commercial real estate sector

Lisa joined FT Alphaville in September 2011 after a tour of duty through the guts of the financial industry, having worked as an analyst at a bank and for a financial data company.

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| Mar 26 11:14 | Comment |

The latest bank-sovereign crisis always gets the most attention. Despite the best of intentions, no amount of preparation can get the current flair-up ready to have its place in the limelight stolen. Once torn, salt is rubbed into the wound by means of nasty comparisons that disrespect the unique nature of one’s distress. Ireland is not Greece! Portugal is not Ireland! Italy is not Spain! And Cyprus is special because of gangsta finance and its reliance on deposits for funding…

Grow up. Everyone has problems.

That said, we’ve carved out a special place in our schedules this morning to spend some quality time with one of the middle children. Aren’t we good? And so to the Netherlands, where the government nationalised SNS Reaal, the parent company of SNS Bank, on February 1st. It used its shiny new Intervention Act and everything. Read more

China’s ubiquitous ghost cities

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Nov 26 2012 10:28 | Comment |

One of the tentative signs of improvement in China’s economy in the past few months has been the apparent reduction in inventory of residential apartments.

Real estate investment was responsible for about 13 per cent of China’s GDP last year, and is a key destination for financially-repressed Chinese household savings, so it’s an important sector. Read more

Chinese property is baaaaack!

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Oct 03 2012 13:18 | Comment |

Remember Chinese property? How there was a boom in apartment building that amounted to some 10 per cent of GDP, and now there are gazillions of investment apartments sitting empty, and local governments got really hooked on the revenues from land sales, and it all fueled the development of weird and dodgy securitisations which offered a tempting alternative to letting one’s savings lose value in a deposit account? Read more

Santander profit falls 35%

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jan 31 2012 10:07 | Comment |

Net profit at Spain’s Santander, the eurozone’s biggest bank by market capitalisation, fell 35 per cent last year to €5.35bn from €8.18bn in 2010 as the Spanish property market collapse and the eurozone debt crisis continued to erode earnings, the FT reports. Santander released results on Tuesday showing it barely made a profit in the final quarter of last year – net profit was €47m compared to €2.10bn a year earlier – after it set aside a €1.81bn fourth-quarter gross charge to clean up bad property loans in Spain. Over the year as a whole, the bank made total net extraordinary provisions of €3.18bn, largely because it is anticipating new provisioning rules likely to be announced on Friday by the centre-right government that took power in Spain in December. Bloomberg reports that the bank previously said it had about €1.5bn in gains from sales of insurance and auto loans unit stakes in the Americas to bolster its balance sheet. Santander has used those funds to partly offset the  one-time provisions. Read more

Terminado del forebearance

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Dec 15 2011 14:54 | Comment |

Here’s an interesting exercise from Fitch — they’ve counted up 8,235 properties which were repossessed in Spanish RMBS that they rated.

These are some of their findings: Read more

China’s Wen says gov’t won’t ease property curbs

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Oct 31 2011 09:40 | Comment |

According to a statement following a State Council meeting chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao, China will “firmly” maintain its property curbs and “fine tune” other economic policies at an appropriate time, Bloomberg reports. The announcement saw Chinese stocks fall for the first time in six days. Among the names affected were Anhui Conch Cement, China’s biggest producer of the building material, which lost 1.6 per cent after the government said local authorities should strictly implement tight policies in the property industry in the coming months. Falls in Huaxia Bank and Bank of Communications, meanwhile, drove an index of financial companies to its first drop in more than a week. “It’s too early to celebrate after the rally as the government is still keeping its control policies,” said Tu Jun, a strategist at Shanghai Securities told Bloomberg. “The market may be range-bound at current levels and the uncertainty over policy easing will lead to volatility.” Read more

Property and construction bankruptcies rise

Kate is FT AV’s Asia Correspondent. She joined FT Alphaville in mid-2011 after carrying out various roles in the FT’s London office since 2005: interactive editor, companies reporter, and founding editor of the FT’s Energy Source blog.

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| Oct 05 2011 04:51 | Comment |

The number of real-estate and construction companies seeking bankruptcy in England and Wales rose by 11 per cent in the third quarter as budget cuts and economic uncertainty led to canceled projects, according to research by Deloitte. Bloomberg reports that a total of 117 property companies and builders went into administration in the period, up from 105 a year earlier. Deloitte said medium-sized firms will be hurt more than larger contractors, and attributed the increase to rising energy prices and cuts to both private and public sector building projects. The next quarter would not bring any improvement, the company said. Read more

BofA aims to sell Merrill property assets

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Aug 17 2011 09:46 | Comment |

Blackstone is in exclusive talks to buy $1bn of Merrill Lynch’s real estate investments from Bank of America, the FT reports. The sale, which according to people familiar with the matter is still weeks away, would comprise unwanted property investments in Europe, the US and South America, including logistics properties in central Europe, shopping centres in Germany and a Brazilian housing developer. Merrill invested in the assets, often alongside third parties, before the 2008 bust. The sale is part of the bank’s wider efforts to dispose of non-core assets and would effectively conclude the real estate portion of its winding down of assets in its principal investments unit, backed by BofA’s own capital. Read more

Lloyds impaired

| Aug 04 2011 11:31 | Comment |

It seemed too good to last… and it was.

Lloyds Banking Group has bucked the trend in the UK banks sector and reported a disappointing set of half year figures. Read more

Safe haven alternatives, London property edition

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Aug 01 2011 11:35 | Comment |

As FT Alphaville and others have duly noted, the search for the ultimate safe haven alternative is on.

RBS now points to one possible alternative, London luxury-home prices. Read more

On the matter of misvalued Chinese land

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jul 14 2011 10:23 | Comment |

Phew..! What a relief.

The Chinese danger is no more.
 Read more

Nomura says Spanish banks are funding 24 years worth of housing

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jun 09 2011 09:44 | Comment |

During the Spanish boom of 2004-2008 the country started construction of about 3.26m new houses, according to Nomura’s figures, and sold about 2.86m in the Costa Brava beach house craze.

By the end of 2009, however, the financial crisis had erupted and left Spain with a stock of unsold houses of almost 700,000. By 2010, the number of new houses being sold had dropped to 200,000. Read more

China’s uncollateralised, cash flow-less, local government loans

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jun 07 2011 11:04 | Comment |

The first time FT Alphaville stumbled upon China’s local government debt problem, it was in the form of one Shanghai district township snaffling a $250m loan from a Chinese bank for a “high-profile investment.”

Small problem — the township spent the loan, secured using a so-called local government investment vehicle (LGIV) without collateral, on completely unrelated development projects. Read more

China’s falling property prices, local debt

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jun 02 2011 09:37 | Comment |

Beijing’s efforts to cool the country’s sizzling residential property market are finally beginning to work after a year of moral suasion and threats to local governments, banks and developers, writes the FT. For some, including China’s cash-strapped local authorities, they may be working too well. The average transaction price for land sales across the country fell 32 per cent in April from a month earlier and has dropped 51 per cent since the start of the year, according to government data published by Credit Suisse. FT Alphaville notes that the supply of Chinese housing is also increasing, while the central goernment moved on Tuesday to shore up its local finances with a bailout of municipal debt worth up to $463bn. Read more

Chinese housing inventories are rising

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jun 01 2011 09:31 | Comment |

Standard Chartered are on the ball as ever when it comes to developments in the Chinese real-estate market.

In their latest note they warn about the scale of possible over-supply that’s set to hit the market. Read more

Chinese ‘copper financing’ got even more popular this month

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Mar 29 2011 18:11 | Comment |

So says Standard Chartered bank in their latest Metals Weekly research.

The bank was among the first to bring attention to the fad of commodity-backed financing in China, and now has this update: Read more

David Rosenberg’s cartoon-ish 2011

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Jan 12 2011 16:56 | Comment |

David Rosenberg’s gone all cartoony.

The Gluskin Sheff analyst seems to have given up on on words and is instead using charts — and Loony Tunes — to illustrate his (very salient) points. Read more

A Chinese real-estate supply shock

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Nov 19 2010 12:06 | Comment |

Standard Chartered’s analysts have been doing a good job of monitoring the Chinese real-estate conundrum — i.e. will prices collapse or will they just keep booming forever?

In a note issued on Thursday, though, they look more closely at the triggers that might eventually prompt a correction. Read more

RE-ally good news?

| Nov 03 2010 16:56 | Comment |

Readers will have heard the case against real-estate and commercial real-estate investments. But here, courtesy of Patrick Moonen of ING IM, is a more optimistic view on Wednesday:

Real estate outperformance could continue in 2011. ING IM says there are a number of supporting factors for this prediction – notably that many real estate listed companies have refinanced and that the underlying commercial property is at a turning point on vacancies and rents, while dividend yields in the developed markets are attractive. Read more

From foreclosure to writedowns

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Oct 15 2010 11:03 | Comment |

Foreclosure worries are now (finally) seeping into bank shares and credit.

Four US financials — Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, GMac/Ally, PNC — have halted foreclosures in all or some US states while they sort out technical deficiencies in their paperwork process. Read more

Reading the tea-leaves in China’s rich list

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Oct 12 2010 21:43 | Comment |

Retail is in — and real estate is out, says the WSJ’s China Real-Time Report. That’s the message being gleaned from the Hurun Report’s list of Chinese billionaires (ex Hong Kong and Taiwan), which counts between 400 and 500 dollar billionaires in the country. Around 95 per cent of individuals worth over $150 million draw their riches from consumers inside China, from beverages magnates to the lords of the country’s web industry: Baidu’s founder is ranked fifth-richest with the Red Bull soft drink’s Chinese licensee. There’s another Hurun Report list of interest to China, the FT reports: more than half the world’s richest self-made women are Chinese. Zhang Yin, head of Nine Dragons Paper, takes the top spot. Oprah Winfrey is ninth. Read more

US cities feel tax hit on real estate bust

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Oct 07 2010 09:51 | Comment |

The fiscal situation for US cities is the worst it has been in at least 25 years and the problems are intensifying, research released on Wednesday shows, the FT reports. The National League of Cities, which surveyed finance officers in 338 cities, found that property tax revenues are just beginning to decline in what was an anticipated, but delayed response to the collapse of the real estate market in the last few years. Read more

An Irish covered-bond warning

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 17 2010 15:47 | Comment |

This is why Barclays Capital’s warning over Ireland’s medium-term debt sustainability matters. Note that phrasing. Ireland will not be going to the IMF tomorrow — but there’s more uncertainty in the next few years.

Uncertainty over how much is left to support Irish banks, that is — Anglo Irish above all, even as it faces winding down. Read more

Harvard endowment fund underperforms

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Sep 10 2010 09:49 | Comment |

Respectable, not spectacular. The Harvard endowment has posted an 11 per cent increase in its $27.4 portfolio, the NYT reports. The return follows last year’s 27 per cent plunge in the endowment’s value — marking a turnaround for chief executive Jane Mendillo — but that’s still below the 12.3 per cent median return of large endowments, and also below the DJIA’s 18.9 per cent return over the same period, the WSJ reports. The endowment’s 9 per cent weighting of real estate in its portfolio helped drive a negative 2.7 per cent returns on ‘real assets’, too. But Harvard’s dropped talks on selling stakes in real estate to China’s sovereign wealth fund, Bloomberg reports. Read more

Buy-out firms eye Morgan Stanley fund

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Aug 11 2010 10:22 | Comment |

Private equity firms including KKR and TPG have approached Morgan Stanley about buying a stake in its troubled real estate funds management business, people familiar with the matter have told the FT. Colony Capital has also registered interest as part of its bid to build up property exposure. The fund has attracted private equity suitors as given a drive to increase assets under management and diversify away from traditional buy-out activity, the FT adds. KKR has meanwhile indicated that it will start raising funds for a new North American fund in the next few quarters, Reuters reports. Read more

Cracks in the Chinese bubble?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Aug 04 2010 18:25 | Comment |

Is the Chinese property market in a bubble, or not? It’s a vexed question. FT Alphaville has a round-up of recent views, including an upbeat report by Standard Chartered’s Stephen Green.  Read more

What does Spanish bank stress look like in real life?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 22 2010 16:50 | Comment |

Here’s some reality-based European banking stress to consider ahead of Friday’s theoretical test announcements, courtesy of some results from a Spanish lender.

Step forward, Banco Sabadell. Read more

What’s up with Spanish mortgage lending?

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Jul 20 2010 14:40 | Comment |

The non-performing pain in Spain is back in the limelight.

The total stock of non-performing loans sloshing around the Spanish banking system hit €100bn in May, according to data from the Bank of Spain released on Monday. Read more

Spain’s sand-castle exposure

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jul 07 2010 15:58 | Comment |

Aside from generalised peripheral sovereign debt jitters, there is another reason to be scared of Spain, according to Barclays Capital’s Antonio Garcia Pascaul.

In his latest note, co-authored by Piero Ghezzi, the analyst focuses specifically on Spain’s infrastructure sector, where things are apparently getting fairly gritty. Read more

A US new home sales no-brainer

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Jun 23 2010 15:31 | Comment |

So much for a pick-up in the US housing market.

The latest figures from the US Commerce Department on Wednesday showed sales of new homes plunging by 33 per cent in May, to a record low.  Read more

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