Írland eins og við í vandræðum með banka - ákv. tekin um að skipta upp Anglo Irish, báðir helmingar lagðir niður á 4. árum!

Fimmtudaginn 8. september, tók ríkisstj. Írlands ákvörðun um að skipta Anglo Irish, stærsta banka Írlands, upp í 2 hluta. Í öðrum hluta verði skuldirnar en í hinum innistæðurnar. Með þeim hætti verði innistæðueigendur varðir fyrir frekari áföllum, frá vaxandi fj. slæmra skulda innan skuldapakka hins nú sáluga Anglo Irish.

Þessi breyting hefur engin áhrif á þá 100% tryggingu írskra stjv. á öllum innistæðum á vegum írskra banka, hvar sem innistæðueigendur er að finna. En, í þeirri tryggingu lá einmitt gríðarlegur kostnaður, ef ákvörðun hefði verið tekin um að leggja starfsemi Anglo Irish að fullu niður þá þegar, en þá hefði þurft að greiða út allar innistæður bankans, sem hefði verið mjög stór fjárhagslegt áfall fyrir írsk. stj.

Samt sem áður, eru vandræði Anglo Irish búin að vera mjög stór myllusteinn um háls írskra stjv. Þau eru ákveðin í að koma honum frá, eitt skipti fyrir öll.

En, vandræði Anglo Irish höfðu ágerst í seinni tíð, þrátt fyrir mikinn peningaaustur írskra stjv. fram að þessu, og bankinn virtist enn á ný stefna fram af hengiflugi. Stjv. sáu sitt óvænna.

Með þessari aðgerð á með öðrum orðum að lágmarka kostnað fyrir írska skattgreiðendur, hugmyndin er að bankinn verði endanlega aflagður, en að álaginu þ.e. kostnaðinum af því, verði dreift yfir 4 ár.

Vandræði bankans, voru farin að valda írskum stjv. verulegum vandræðum á skuldabréfamörkuðum, þ.e. vaxtakrafa fyrir 10 ára bréf, var víst komin upp í 6% - sem er algeng viðmiðun og talið sársaukamörk, allt umfram 6% talið merki um að markaðir telji viðkomandi ríki á leið í þrot.

Þannig, Írsk stjv. urðu að bregðast við og það með mjög ákveðnum hætti. Síðan verður að koma í ljós, hvort þessi aðgerð mun skila tilætluðum árangri, að losa mjög erfiðann myllustein af stjv. og skattgreiðendum, og hjálpa stjv. að ná stjórn á ástandinu - og einnig um að sannfæra fjárfesta um það að Írland ráði við sín vandamál!

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Sjá fréttaumfjöllun:

 

NY Times: Investor Fears Force Split-Up of Irish Bank

"In an era of global banking excess, Anglo Irish was one of the most reckless lenders, funneling the bulk of its loans into the country’s real estate market. When the market crashed, so did Anglo Irish, prompting a government takeover...Of the $96 billion in loans on Anglo Irish’s books when the government stepped in, only about $15 billion are receiving payments, according to bank management."

"According to widely read research by Barclays Capital, for a country to borrow at a 6 percent rate of interest is “unbearable” and represents a prelude to a bailout or rescue — especially if cheaper borrowing is made available from the rescue fund."

"In the case of Greece earlier this year, the country quickly began to lose the confidence of the markets once its borrowing costs surpassed 6 percent."

"“It’s déjà vu all over again — but this is different from Greece,” said Daniel Gros of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. If Irish banks “can’t refinance themselves, the numbers get very big very quickly,” he said."

"Mr. Gros pointed out that loans to depleted Irish banks from the European Central Bank were about 40 percent of the country’s G.D.P., a dynamic that he contended was unsustainable and would ultimately lead to Ireland seeking assistance from Europe and the I.M.F."

Bloomberg: Anglo Irish to Be Split as Ireland Seeks ‘Finality’

"Standard & Poor’s last month said Ireland may have to pump as much as 35 billion euros ($45 billion) into Anglo Irish, which collapsed last year as the country’s property market slumped. Ireland is seeking to resolve the issue as its sovereign borrowing costs soar on concern the weight of bank bailouts will cripple the nation."

Guardian: Anglo Irish Bank split in two

"Mike Aynsley, Anglo Irish Bank's chief executive, said clarity from the Irish government on the future of the bank may help stem a decline in deposits. Customer deposits fell by about €4bn to €23.1bn in the first half of the year."

Huffington: Ireland Will Split Troubled Anglo Irish Bank In Two

"Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said Wednesday,,,noting that Anglo owes euro72 billion to depositors worldwide, particularly in the United States, where Anglo-owned properties are lying derelict or bankrupt from New York to Florida. "If we let those deposits go, we let Ireland go with it. We would do fierce damage to our economy," Lenihan said in an interview. "If we closed Anglo tomorrow, 72 billion would be owed and must be paid out immediately, and the taxpayer cannot afford that.""

"Lenihan said the "good" splinter of Anglo would become a deposit-only bank "completely separated from Anglo's loan assets."...The bad bank would gradually dispose of Anglo's largely dysfunctional book of loans to Ireland's construction and property barons, many of whom went to the wall after Ireland's runaway property market burst in 2008."

"And the European minister for competition, Joaquin Almunia, signaled Wednesday he would accept the government's plans for splitting Anglo too."

"The stunning failure of Anglo – which recorded more losses than any other bank worldwide in 2009 and appears on course to do the same this year – has been eroding international confidence in the ability of Ireland to keep financing and paying its own mounting national debt."

"On Wednesday, 10-year Irish treasuries were commanding premiums of 6.05 percent, some 3.8 percentage points above German bonds – just off Monday's Irish high of 3.91 points dating back to the creation of the euro."

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Magnaður lestur - ekki satt?

• "The stunning failure of Anglo – which recorded more losses than any other bank worldwide in 2009 and appears on course to do the same this year"
• "In an era of global banking excess, Anglo Irish was one of the most reckless lenders, funneling the bulk of its loans into the country’s real estate market. When the market crashed, so did Anglo Irish, prompting a government takeover"
• "Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said Wednesday,,,noting that Anglo owes euro72 billion to depositors worldwide, particularly in the United States, where Anglo-owned properties are lying derelict or bankrupt from New York to Florida."
• Of the $96 billion in loans on Anglo Irish’s books when the government stepped in, only about $15 billion are receiving payments, according to bank management."

Takið eftir - 84% útlána voru í vandræðum - þegar bankinn lenti í fanginu á írskum stjv.

 

Bankinn var svo hruninn, að þ.e. ekki hlægilegt.

 

Ég held þetta sé enn lægra hlutfall nothæfra útlána, heldur en í tilviki hinna hrundu ísl. banka. 

 

Eins og þarna kemur fram, útlána tap hans er stærsta útlána taps nokkurs banka í heiminum árið 2009.

 

 

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Ef síðan er lesið neðan úr Sunday Times, þá kemur skýrt í ljós að hegðan Anglo Irish var ótrúlega svipuð hegðan stjórnenda ísl. bankanna:

 

The Sunday Times: So much for a line in the sand

Last week, the bank’s new chief executive Mike Aynsley, an Australian, came closest to fingering why Anglo went so bad. “Hubris played a very, very big part,” he said.

Sean FitzPatrick, David Drumm and his followers became so enmeshed with entrepreneurs and enterprise, that they began to think and act as though they were entrepreneurs themselves.

These were bankers who forgot they were bankers. The bank board was stacked with Anglo executives, former executives or entrepreneurs. The dividing line between those who take risks, and those whose primary job was to manage, control and measure risk became blurred.

Brendan Murtagh is a classic example of Anglo’s attitude to risk. He was a director and large shareholder in Kingspan, the maker of insulation panels and floor tiles.

At the peak of the boom, Kingspan shares reached €22. Murtagh was a very wealthy man. He invested and became a key shareholder in a property company, Howard Holdings.

Anglo lent to Howard and took personal guarantees from Murtagh as security.

Kingspan and Howard were both exposed to the commercial property. So when the market turned, both Howard’s property assets and the Kingspan shares went in the same steep downward direction. Anglo’s “comfort” security was gone. It was poor risk management.

In many property deals, Anglo would lend to wealthy individuals to fund their equity participation in a syndicate. It would then lend the syndicate the money to purchase a property.

As a result, the loan to value on the deals was in effect 95%-100% and the bank was totally exposed to the fall in value of the property.

Brendan McDonagh, chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), said last week that it was the emergence of these types of deals that led to the steep widening of discounts on loans transferred by Anglo and Irish Nationwide.

“In some cases where banks said they were lending at 75% loan to value, that ended up close to 100% loan to value,” he said.

He added that Nama is attaching no value to personal guarantees.

Maarten van Eden, Anglo Irish Bank’s chief financial officer, says that another big problem was that Anglo was lending-driven.

Rather than raising deposits to then lend to clients, Anglo did things the other way around. The bank went out and sought deals and then “back filled” with funding. And unfortunately for the Irish taxpayer, funding was both bountiful and cheap.

Aynsley tells the tale of a pub entrepreneur he met shortly after arriving in Ireland. The businessman did not bank with Anglo, but was courted by it.

He recounted to Aynsley how he was met at a pub auction by a Anglo loan officer with a cheque for €500,000 “for the deposit if you need it”.

Anglo has also made €5 billion of loan loss provisions outside of its Nama-bound commercial property book.

The bank has large exposures to entrepreneurs such as Seán Quinn and Barry O’Callaghan, of EMPG. In both cases, the bank’s security was limited and largely on the men’s shares in businesses.

The reason why the other Irish banks set off in pursuit of Anglo was not just the short-term impact of a year’s record profits, or the lure of commercial property. What AIB particularly feared was the loss of a generation of Ireland’s wealthiest business leaders to Anglo, a tectonic shift in Irish banking.

In the new Irish banking universe, there will be a different attitude to this kind of name lending and to risk. And not just at the new Anglo.

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Niðurstaða

Þ.e. ljóst að stjórnendur Anglo Irish voru í engu betri en stjórnendur ísl. bankanna. Lánastefna bankans eins og hér, virðist hafa verið áhættusöm svo líkja verður því við fífldirsku.

Það má segja, að miðað við hve ástand lánapakka Anglo Irish var, þegar hann féll - þá hafi megnið af lánum bankans verið hrein froða sbr. 84% í vandræðum við hrun bankans.

Spurning hvort írsk. stjv. ættu ekki að taka það til fullrar athugunar hvort stjórnendur Anglo Irish, hafi verið með skipulagt svind í gangi. En, miðað við tölurnar að ofan, þ.e. hve froðukennd lánin virðast hafa verið, þá er klár ástæða til að skoða mál bankans út frá þeirri forsendu að um skipulagt svind hafi verið um að ræða.

En, ég votta írsku þjóðinni samúð mína, en þessum eina banka og stjórnendum hans, virðast vera nærri því að takast að koma ríkissjóð Írlands á hnén.

En, skuldabréf írskra stjv. rufu í þessari viku 6% múrinn í vaxtakröfu fyrir 10 ára bréf. Þegar þetta gerðist snemma á árinu í tilviki Grikklands, þá var atburðaráðsin hröð.

Írskum stjv. hlýtur hættan að vera ljós og sú aðgerð að leggja Anglo Irish í reynd niður, er klárlega ætlað að eyða þeirri óvissu. En, óljóst er hvort sú verði reyndin, því þó kostnaðinum sé dreift á 4 ár, þá verður þetta samt mjög erfitt.

Írsk stjv. eru með hæsta hallann á sínum ríkissjóði. Skuldirnar fara hratt hækkandi. Aðgerðir til að stemma stigu við hratt minnkandi tiltrú fjárfesta verða að vera ákveðnar og afgerandi.

 

Kv.