Month: July 2010

Post-Guarantee Events at Anglo

Karl Whelan has posted on this question, querying the non-removal of Anglo management after the guarantee at end-September 2008. One rather strange manouevre has been commented on by Cliff Taylor in the Sunday Business Post (I can’t locate the piece: Cliff writes a lot, for an editor).

What appears to have happened is this. In May 2008, Anglo borrowed in Yen to finance an asset position in £ Sterling, and ran the position uncovered. There was some tax angle. Yen interest rates were well below sterling rates. By end-September, the Yen/Sterling exchange rate had moved adversely but not disastrously. But the movement accelerated and the deal was unwound at substantial cost a few months later. The following is from Anglo’s 2009 accounts, page 62.

Included within foreign exchange contracts is the impact of a non-trading Japanese Yen financing arrangement, which was first

entered into in May 2008 and ended during December 2008 and January 2009. The financing arrangement was intended to

reduce the Group’s overall net cost of funding and was structured in a manner which was anticipated to result in no net after

tax loss for the Group arising from currency fluctuations. In the six months to 31 March 2009 the arrangement resulted in a pretax

loss of €181m but an after tax benefit of €17m. However, due to the significant operating losses incurred by the Group in

the nine months to 31 December 2009, €97m of taxation benefit has not been recognised resulting in a pre-tax loss for the

fifteen month period to 31 December 2009 of €181m (30 September 2008: €31m) and an after tax cost of €80m

(30 September 2008: gain of €6m). The potential benefit of these losses carried forward is a component of unrecognised

deferred tax assets in note 35.

 

 

 

Not being an accountant, I am unable to translate this into English, but it looks like an uncovered foreign exchange carry-trade punt that went wrong. Of the €181m hit, €150m occurred after end-September 2008, at which point there could have been no plausible expectation of profits to shelter, assuming that the tax angle is, or was, serious. Thus Anglo would appear to have run a naked forex position post the guarantee, and dropped €150 m in the process. No doubt there is a more detailed explanation to be given, but it sure looks like gambling for redemption. On October 5th. 2008, I wrote the following in a piece in the SBP:

  ‘All six of the domestic banks have been given an identical vote of confidence and none has been allowed to fail. This is both unjust and potentially costly, since any bank close to insolvency now has an incentive to throw more dice, without capital at risk’.

The Commission of Inquiry will have a long agenda, but this costly Anglo forex manouevre deserves a slot somewhere.

Serious Questions about Post-Guarantee Anglo Policy

The documents released yesterday show that the government were aware in September 2008 that, at least under stress scenarios, Anglo Irish Bank was going to be insolvent.

Continue reading “Serious Questions about Post-Guarantee Anglo Policy”

David Murphy: Hindsight Says Guarantee the Right Option

On the day that we found out that, contrary to the mantra of “everything was done on the basis of the best possible advice” the Irish government failed to follow the expert advice it received from Merrill Lynch when it decided to introduce a blanket guarantee, the state broadcaster brought on David Murphy to explain the implications. Viewers of the Six-One news were treated to the following exchange:

Sharon ni Bheolain: So with the benefit of hindsight and knowing now what we do know particularly about the value of those assets underpinning the loans, can we say that the blanket guarantee was the wrong way to go or is that an oversimplification?

David Murphy: I think in hindsight the guarantee probably was the right way to go and that’s exactly the conclusion that Patrick Honohan came to in his recent reports on the banks. The question though is “did they guaranteed too much?” and they did include subordinated debt in the guarantee. That was something that Merrill Lynch warned against. Merrill Lynch did make a number of warnings about introducing the guarantee. It said that Europe won’t be happy and that was right. It said that there will be a negative knock-on consequence for borrowing money in financial markets and that was right too. But it looks as if the government probably did choose the right option finally.

David reckons Patrick Honohan says that with hindsight the guarantee issued was the right way go. Let me turn the microphone over to Governor Honohan:

the extent of the cover provided (including to outstanding long-term bonds) can – even without the benefit of hindsight – be criticised inasmuch as it complicated and narrowed the eventual resolution options for the failing institutions and increased the State‘s potential share of the losses.

As I have discussed here before, Honohan’s arguments in favour of some sort of guarantee do not in any way mean his report backed the full blanket guarantee that was introduced. Rather than backing the guarantee with the benefit of hindsight, he opposes it even without this benefit!

So the only argument David Murphy can produce to defend the blanket guarantee is the claim that someone who opposed it (albeit in diplomatic language) was exactly in favour of it. Perhaps David had another argument and I have missed it.

More seriously, I heard An Taoiseach on the radio today defending the decision to introduce the blanket guarantee on the grounds that this was required to keep access to funding open for the Irish banks. Again, I’d defer to Governor Honohan, who argued in his report that the inclusion in the guarantee of existing long-term bonds “was not necessary in order to protect the immediate liquidity position. These investments were in effect locked-in.”

So, let’s recap. The government did not, in fact, follow the best possible advice that it paid for when introducing a blanket guarantee. Governor Honohan is not an advocate of blanket guarantees. And blanket guarantees are not necessary to deal with short-term liquidity problems.

Still, at least the government has David Murphy’s support.

Central Bank and NTMA Annual Reports

The Central Bank have released their annual report (press statements from Governor Honohan here and from Chairman of the Regulator Jim Farrell here).  The NTMA has also released its annual report here and its mid-year business review here.

Documents Relating to Bank Guarantee

The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee has placed a number of documents online that were given to it by the Department of Finance in relation to the government’s deliberations prior to its decision to issue a guarantee on the liabilities of the Irish banks in September 2008. The documents can be found here. Section A has the most relevant but there’s also some interesting stuff in Section B, which has material from a joint Finance\Central Bank Standing Group on Financial Stability.

Update: There’s a lot of material in the documents and I haven’t looked at it all. However, thus far, my impression is that while the documents are useful in shedding light on the extent of the government’s lack of understanding of the scale of the solvency problem in the banks, they are not very useful in explaining why the government decided to issue such a blanket guarantee.

Take a look at document 5 from part A. This contains notes from a meeting on Friday September 26 involving the Minister for Finance and representatives from the Central Bank, Financial Regulator, Department of Finance and the government’s advisers, Merrill Lynch. The notes state: “On a blanket guarantee for all banks — ML felt could be a mistake and hit national rating and allow poorer banks to continue.”

Moving on a couple of days to document 3 from part A, a blanket guarantee is one of the options presented to the government by Merrill Lynch on Sunday, September 28. However, the note questions the credibility of this approach, again mentions the implications for sovereign debt ratings and also points to a negative reaction for other European countries. The document is a bit inconclusive but the blanket guarantee still does not appear to be the preferred option of the govenment’s advisers.

Then on September 29, the government decided to introduce an almost-blanket guarantee. These documents do not make it clear why this decision was taken.