AIB and Bank of Ireland have been included as two of the 91 banks chosen for the stress test being conducted by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors. They don’t do too well in JP Morgan’s version of the test, reported here. Results will be released on 23 July.
Author: Karl Whelan
Day 2 of the new NAMA business plan and I’m sure people are already a little tired of it as tolerance for all things NAMA has dwindled for most of us. For those still interested, Constantin Gurdgiev has a number of useful calculations in this post.
I’ll conclude on this issue for now by making a few simple points as to why I think the outcome for the taxpayer is likely to be worse than indicated by the plan’s “worst-case scenario’’ of an €800 million loss to be recouped via a levy.
NAMA have now published their business plan (announcement here). I haven’t looked at it in full detail but a few comments are worth making at this point.
First, it’s not much of a plan. It doesn’t bother trying to update the draft plan‘s year by year analysis of cashflows. As such, the scenario analysis, such as it is, seems like it will be pretty useless to those of trying to assess its credibility.
Second, in relation to Monday’s leaks, the prize for accuracy goes to the Indo’s John Mulligan who correctly reported the new information on cash flows was that NAMA now estimate that 25% of the loans are cash flow producing, which was more accurate than the Times report of about 20 per cent. To be specific, the plan says:
the draft Plan assumption was that 40% of acquired loans would be income-producing; however, the level of debtor impairment evident from the first tranche loan transfers suggests that 25% may be a more reasonable estimate. Similarly, the actual LTV ratios that have become evident during the Tranche 1 due diligence process have been higher than those indicated by institutions last autumn.
There are two possibilities in relation to the difference between the current and draft business plans in relation to their assessment of loan quality. Either the information provided to the government by the banks last year prior to the passing of the NAMA bill was highly inaccurate (speculate yourself as to why this might have been) or the loan portfolio is deteriorating rapidly. It would be useful for NAMA to clarify the relative contributions of these two factors.
Third, I find it interesting that when NAMA CEO Brendan McDonagh appeared before the Oireachtas Finance Committee on April 13, NAMA had already paid for most of the first tranche of loans. And yet, at the time, McDonagh said that “we estimate the figure is probably closer to one third, that 33% of the loans are cashflow producing.”
It might be possible that the discrepancy between this estimate and the current estimate is accounted for by new information about Anglo’s loans, which were still being analysed when McDonagh gave his one-third estimate. That said, why it should be difficult for a government to find out how many people are repaying the NAMA-bound loans beats me (a point that applies doubly when the bank in case has been nationalised bank.) Less palatable is the idea that we are finding new nasty surprises about loans after we have already paid for them.