Posts tagged 'Spanish Banks'

So Popular it just can’t stop buying itself

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Nov 12 2012 16:35 | Comment |

Spain’s Popular bank has got backing for a €2.5bn rights issue. But here’s the thing we think deserves a touch more attention — in the run up to the rights issue, Popular once again ramped up its holdings of its own shares, from 0.588 per cent in July to 3.979 per cent on the second of November (data here). We still find this odd…

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Is the ECB sticking to its collateral rules?

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Nov 05 2012 13:03 | Comment |

The ECB may have granted loans to the Spanish bank sector on too low an interest rate given the quality of the collateral posted, according to an investigation by Die Welt. It potentially raises rather worrying questions about the bank’s risk control systems and whether it is even following its own strict lending rules. Read more

Soy Sareb

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 29 2012 16:58 | Comment |

It includes an almost 80 per cent haircut on buying foreclosed land assets from banks. (“The transfer price is not a reference for the valuation of nontransferred bank assets.” – OK then) Useful to remember that pricing will be based on “real economic value” – which Ireland’s Nama showed can be an elastic term – but the presentation also says further “adjustments” will be made on top of that.

There’s also a “conservative” target of 14 to 15 per cent return on equity over 15 years for working out loans… while Sareb will spend €45bn on a first wave of loans transferred from Bankia and other particularly weak banks. Read more

Moody’s on Spanish banks and others on the bailout muddle

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Oct 02 2012 11:24 | Comment |

The Oliver Wyman report landed last week. The headline was that Spain’s banks would need almost €60bn in new capital and that seven out of the 14 Spanish banks under review failed the ‘bottom up’ test.

The actual recap figure was €59.3bn, falling to €53.7bn because banks are allowed to count in both mergers in which they’re involved and deferred tax assets. We expressed some scepticism about those DTA’s and the rather hopeful proposition that… Read more

Those Spanish stress test results

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 28 2012 17:15 | Comment |

Seven (many already nationalised) lenders, comprising 37 per cent of Spanish banks’ loan portfolios, failed and need more capital. Seven lenders passed.

It’s almost €60bn, as initial estimates had suggested in June. Read more

Placements privadas, in Spain

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 14 2012 14:51 | Comment |

Should you worry about this kind of thing in Spanish debt?

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Draghi, Spanish banks, and revisiting the collateral issue

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Sep 05 2012 20:32 | Comment |

As you mull over the leaked reports of what Draghi might say on Thursday and its implications for Spain’s banking system (and many other things), here’s an updated and stunning note on recent Spanish capital flight generally from Nomura:

The main conclusion from looking at the details of the country-specific balance of payments within the eurozone is that Spain is in a category of its own. While there are some outflows in countries like Portugal and Italy, the size of these outflows is not nearly as large as in Spain. On a 3-month rolling basis, Italy’s outflows represent about 15% of GDP currently, while they represent about 50% of GDP for Spain. Read more

Spain’s funding costs post a Draghi-ing

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Sep 04 2012 19:33 | Comment |

So, we are days from finding out what the ECB is planning to do… or at least, days away from knowing more than we do now.

But immediate largesse in the bond market isn’t the only bit of help that should be concentrated on. There is still Spain’s bank-bailout to consider and where its costs should ultimately lie. Read more

FROB and (bail-in) gristle

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 03 2012 14:41 | Comment |

Just a small thing from Spain’s latest banking legislation, but a telling thing…

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‘Badwill’ in Spain

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Sep 03 2012 12:44 | Comment |

A hat-tip to David Enrich for the spot.

This is from Banco Sabadell’s results at the end of July. It’s all about the consolidation of Banco CAM into its new parent. Read more

Bankia, el banco malo

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 31 2012 19:00 | Comment |

The Spanish bank posted a €4.4bn loss late on Friday night, requiring the Spanish government to inject ‘transitory’ capital “con carácter inmediato” months before a proper, EU-led restructuring and recap plan for the Bankia group is drawn up.

Yes, this bank is still a disaster zone. Read more

When ECB bond-buying meets collateral

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 24 2012 19:12 | Comment |

Click to enlarge.

A word of caution in advance: the optimal structure is deeply complex, which itself should raise concern in the minds of investors… Read more

Spanish banks increasingly dependent on ECB drip

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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| Aug 15 2012 10:20 | Comment |

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that the Spanish financial sector is having to increasingly rely on ECB funding.

However, data released by the Bank of Spain on Tuesday reveals the sheer speed at which this happened: Read more

Spanish yields spiralling upwards

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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| Jul 23 2012 07:52 | Comment |

That’s Spanish 10-year bond yields hitting a new euro-era high of 7.434 per cent at pixel time according to Bloomberg data. Even more worryingly, Spanish short term borrowing costs continued to kick-up, with the 2-year composite yield touching 6.2 per cent as just about every tenor climbed. Read more

Finland’s Spanish swap

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 19 2012 20:22 | Comment |

Fresh from being debated in an extraordinary session of the Finnish parliament…

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Spain, a bailout master doc

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 19 2012 14:33 | Comment |

A little bit of confusion about this one on Thursday.

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Finland’s Spanish seguridad, some details

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 17 2012 17:30 | Comment |

Spain’s banks really are providing Finland’s collateral for the EFSF/ESM bailout of Spain’s (weaker) banks.

The Finnish finance minister announced a deal on Tuesday. Here’s the presentation (in Finnish, hat-tip Aleksi Moisio) Read more

The bail-in Spain — ECB edition

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 16 2012 09:01 | Comment |

Banking crisis U-turn of the year?

From the WSJ’s Gabriele Steinhauser and Brian Blackstone: Read more

Nama and El Nama

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 13 2012 10:50 | Comment |

How far will Spain’s bad bank be like Ireland’s?

There’s a superficially similar structure. Read more

Concessional in Spain

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 13 2012 08:45 | Comment |

Lend at low rates, for a long term.

It’s one way Spain’s official creditors could believably renounce seniority in the bailout. Concessional loans would make it easier for Spain to refinance its debt stock as a whole, improving bondholder recovery, while recapitalising its banks. Arguably. Read more

The pain in Spain

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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| Jul 11 2012 08:22 | Comment |

If German citizens are wary about the Spanish bank bail-out, we can only imagine how some Spanish are going to feel about it.

As Joseph wrote yesterday (via El Pais) the draft memorandum of understanding for the bail-out includes provision to force any bank seeking aid to compulsorily write-off their preferred shares and subordinated bonds. Read more

The bail-in Spain

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 10 2012 19:28 | Comment |

With a big hat-tip to El Pais, the draft memorandum of understanding for Spain’s bailout. We’re still reading through all the conditions imposed on Spanish banks…. Click pic for full doc

Featuring bank bail-ins for subordinated debt, notably: Read more

Finland’s got a seguridad

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 10 2012 17:31 | Comment |

At an ungodly hour of Tuesday morning, eurozone ministers agreed that the EFSF will lend Spain €30bn for its banks by the end of July.

Two weeks. Read more

Spain brimming with Eurogroup win?

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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| Jul 10 2012 08:30 | Comment |

The Eurogroup finance ministers have inched things forward with their long Monday summit, but the press conference in the early hours of this morning also reaffirmed that many big questions remain.

The first headline is that Spain gets an extra year to meet its 3 per cent deficit-to-GDP ratio target. Just as well, because the country was extremely unlikely to hit that by the end of next year. The Journal reports that a draft statement says this means Spain can now run a 6.3 per cent deficit this year without risking penalties, compared with 5.3 per cent under the 2013 target. Read more

Eurogroup statement

| Jul 10 2012 01:56 | Comment |

9 July 2012

Eurogroup Statement on the follow-up of the 29 June Euro Summit Read more

The Spanish bank buy-back riddle

David joined the FT in 2011 as a Marjorie Deane fellow. He covered emerging markets, equities and currencies before making the jump over to FT Alphaville in May 2012.

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| Jun 26 2012 09:04 | Comment |

So, this is a bit odd. Why would some Spanish banks, which have such high capital needs right now, have been engaged in fairly significant share repurchases over the past few months?

Spanish banks such as Bankia and BBVA have been buying their own stock in increasing quantities since February, with Banco Popular much more active than the rest recently. Read more

Moody’s downgrades Spanish banks

Cardiff writes mostly about US macroeconomic issues, with daily excursions into other topics about which he claim no expertise. Before Alphaville, Cardiff spent a little more than two years as a reporter at Dow Jones Financial News covering investment banking, asset management, and private equity. Along the way he has written freelance pieces on a variety of other topics from behavioural psychology to Muay Thai, the latter also being a personal interest that involves frequently getting kicked in the shins (and torso, and head).

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| Jun 25 2012 23:29 | Comment |

Spanish banks have been downgraded by Moody’s because of their counterparty exposure to the sovereign that backstops them which itself just had its credit rating downgraded by Moody’s because of its pledge to support the banks on which it depends for LTRO funding.

Or something. Read more

Testing for 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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| Jun 25 2012 08:40 | Comment |

Spanish bank write-downs on residential mortgage loans, eh.

It’s something that had been vexing analysts before last week’s stress-test results from Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger, though these tests haven’t dived into individual bank loan books. That comes later. Read more

The €52bn (or maybe €62bn) Spanish bank clean-up

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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| Jun 21 2012 17:05 | Comment |

That’s €51.8bn (how precise) from Roland Berger… and €62bn from Oliver Wyman…

Update — Here are the reports in full (click images for docs): Read more

Seniority in Spain, encore

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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| Jun 20 2012 17:10 | Comment |

Q: In the case of Spanish bank recapitalization, why are you assuming that the public debt does not increase? We now know that government debt has increased by as much as EUR100bn.

A: The losses in the Spanish banking system existed prior to the announcement of the official loan. Most investors/analysts now estimate public recapitalization needs of close to EUR100bn. The official loan from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) or the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) per se does not make the losses any bigger. Once the losses are acknowledged, the realistic choices are between Spain issuing bank recapitalization bonds or a bank recapitalization bond issued by the EFSF/ESM to the sovereign that subordinates the rest of government creditors (with the recapitalization bonds, Spanish banks can tap eurosystem liquidity). According to our calculations, existing bondholders are better off, all else being equal, with senior EFSF/ESM financial support at the concessional rate that is being suggested (3-4%) than with recapitalization bonds that would otherwise have to be issued. Read more

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