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The Anglo Irish Bank Haircut – A Tragedy of Historical Dimensions!
By EMFIS Irish correspondent Nelly O’Hara
The Irish government’s haircut on Anglo’s junior bondholders will be the bond markets’ most important event in the recent history. It will also have detrimental impact on credit markets and the economy in general.
Not Anglo Irish Bank matters here, but the method of the haircut: BLACKMAIL. Is blackmail legal?
Anglo bondholders are forced to vote on either accepting a drastic 80% haircut, or get nothing. Bondholders voting against the haircut will automatically be left with nothing. Like voting in North Korea, you get killed for voting against the tyrant, and this is why the regime is the world’s most popular: 100% YES votes in every election!.
Irish authorities already pat publicly their shoulders for the outcome of their North Korean election among Anglo bondholder, and declared that they will apply similar blackmail methods for their other banks.
If this blackmail succeeds, every single bond in the world will be wallpaper. The blackmail has nothing to do with the fundamentals. It can be used for all bonds. The question is if this method is in line with the law, or even the constitution of any developed country. The METHOD has nothing to do with the asset class “subordinated bonds”, or with Ireland as a crisis country or with Anglo Irish. The method could then be used for any AAA-bond anytime, everywhere. It means if the issuer, at HIS sole discretion, doesn’t like to pay back, he copies the Anglo exchange offer, and – the debt magically disappears. No remedies, it is legal then.
Each time, bondholders will “vote” for the haircut, because they, from their individual position, don’t want to lose their 20%-leftover. If voting against the proposal can be punished with getting g back nothing, nobody will sacrifice himself just to defend higher common goods or morality in the markets. And the haircut’s acceptance by the majority of the bondholders will make the haircut legally binding.
If all North Korans vote against their leader, Kim Jong Il would disappear. But not a single one does it, knowing the others won’t dare to do so.
What matters here is that blackmail, if successful here, will be applicable everywhere. If it is now accepted by spineless hedge funds and by the courts, the survival of bonds as a capital market instrument is at stake. The whole asset class will be slaughtered, and this would trigger a global economic depression.
In Google, you can find thousands of articles and blogs about the Anglo blackmail. But none of them discusses the implications of this for the bond universe.
Every grandmother trusting on pension funds for her golden years, every student relying on university endowment fund, and the whole investment community, should protest and burn the walls of the law firms creating the blackmail, of the government authorities or media praising the blackmail as a new way to solve the world’s problems.
We all must wake up and stop this virus from spreading!
Again, this does not concern only Anglo or Ireland, but if successful, every bond issuer can use blackmail – legally - todestroy wealth and all trust in the markets!
Junior Bank Bonds – Lifeblood of The Economy and Not “Reckless Devisls who Deserve Punishment”
Subordinated bank capital is a precondition for growth. Eliminating its role would lead to an economic depression, especially in Europe.
If banks only rely on common shares, they would have to roughly double the number of shares on issue, just to substitute subordinate capital. This comes in addition to the necessary issuance of bank shares to comply with Basel 3, and to cover the losses of the Financial Crisis. Banks have to compete with normal companies on the equity markets and will not be able to issue so many shares. So, if juniors die as a viable asset class, the volume of loans in banks balance sheets will shrink dramatically. This process will last for a long time, as banks can only slowly (but steadily) downsize their balance sheets.
Anglo and the subsequent screaming for the blood of junior bondholders in other banks has already massively hit the value of junior bonds everywhere, also in Germany. The impact on the economy will be slow, but massive and irreversible. It will happen when banks find it suddenly too expensive to issue junior bonds, and then prefer to shrink their balance sheets instead.
Especially Germany and Northern Europe, with big banks but relatively small equity markets, depend on bank loans, so I assume that Ms. Merkel, the Dutch finance minister & Co don’t understand what they are talking about. Their fight against the juniors is not in their national interest, but kills the lifeblood of their own economies – Germany & Co depend more than others on low priced, large corporate loans from banks with long balance sheets!
Junior bank bonds are the yeast in the dough of our economies, they have a very high leverage on growth, and therefore job creation, tax revenues and everything else that is desperately needed!
Misconception about Lower Tier 2 Bonds
Lower Tier 2 bonds are designed and priced similar to senior bonds, and not high yield, high risk instruments. For Anglo Irish, they were priced at a meager 50bp above seniors and at meager 150bp above Euribor. Within the realm of subordinates, they are far closer to senior bonds in risk and in pricing than to Tier 1 instruments.
The 50bp in price difference are intended to compensate bond investors not for a significantly higher risk, but for the lower issue size and therefore lower liquidity, and for the higher complexity of the instrument. The “higher risk” is very limited: Only in case of a bank liquidation (very rare), LT2s would rank behind seniors regarding distribution of liquidation proceeds. There is not other difference between seniors and LT2.
In case of survival of the bank, LT2s, like seniors, must remain untouched. There is no legal way to impose haircuts! Only voluntary restructuring methods are legal.
Ireland Commits Suicide With Forced Haircuts
Until recently, the formerly market-friendly Fianna Fail government tried everything to maintain a good reputation in the bond markets and therefore performed better than the other PIGS regarding bond spreads, ability to refinance, positive sentiment and comments from analysts and fund managers.
The markets were prepared to find Ireland’s recovery.
Unfortunately, Fianna Fail then lost the nerves, and dug their own grave with the Anglo forced haircut. They did not understand that once a taboo is broken, even if only in junior bonds in a really bad bank, the multi-trillion-$ bond industry will punish them – now and forever. Immediately, the world began to dump everything Irish. The country lost its sovereignty and the government collapsed within weeks.
Now, instead of learning from disaster, populist voices scream for the blood of other bank bonds, especially junior bonds. Dear Mr Cowen, Mr. Lenihan, Dear Opposition: There ARE NO such things as FORCED haircuts on this planet! Haircuts are either voluntary, or they occur in a liquidation case! Anything else has never happened and is illegal – and trying it will destroy the country’s reputation and ability to fund growth for decades. And it will be challenged in the courts anyway.
The populists’ myopic reasoning is as follows: We cannot hit senior bonds, but let’s squeeze the junior bonds, by only a small group of investors who don’t have lobbyists or a voice in the media. But this is wrong – especially Lower Tier 2 bonds are conservative instruments, held by the largest global mainstream pension funds. Any violation here will destroy the country in the same way as a default on seniors.
The global media identified Frau Merkel as the culprit for Ireland’s collapse. Truth is: It was not Germany, but Ireland’s unexpected Anglo haircut, which caused the spreads not only of bank bonds, but also of the sovereign to spiral out of control. Within two months, we saw the previously unthinkable EU/IMF surrender.
The solution for Allied Irish Bank or Bank of Ireland is simple: TRULY VOLUNTARY restructurings – e.g. an exchange at 60-70% into senior or government bonds. And on a voluntary basis, bondholders must have the individual choice. Ireland will still save a lot of money, initially just a little bit less than with the planned illegal North Korea style approach. But Ireland will save its reputation by avoiding a war with the global bond markets and will get cheap ample funding soon again. It will save not only its reputation, but a lot of money, and will enjoy a healthy recovery if it sticks to the law and to the eternal rules if the international community.
Quelle: EMFIS.COM, Autor: (cs)