Economics 09/04/2010: Bank of Ireland: strategic insanity

And so, as I predicted in the press some months ago and confirmed (also in the press) following the AIB rate hike and previous BofI hike in the non-mortgage rates, Bank of Ireland had succumbed to the temptation to destroy its own paying clients in order to plaster up the gaping hole in its capital base.

There are, as you have noticed, a number of things going on in the above statement. Let me briefly explain:

• A hike of 50bps on variable rate mortgages announced by BofI is a short-sighted strategy: the bank holds ca 25% of all mortgages in the country (about 190,000) of these, more than 20% are already in negative equity (over 40,000). BofI should be concerned about preserving those mortgages that are currently at risk - in other words, the bank should focus on helping (or at least not hurting) those who are close to the margin of defaulting. Variable rate hike will most severely impact those households with higher LTV ratios, who are younger and thus at higher risk of unemployment. Thus, the interest rate elasticity of the mortgage default rate is the highest exactly for this category of clients. Put in 'can my grandma understand this' terms - BofI move today is equivalent to destroying that parts of its performing loans book which it should be focusing on saving.
• A hike of 50bps on variable rate mortgages will do absolutely nothing to BofI's balancesheet. Bank might be estimating that it can get few million worth of funds from the move. But the wholesome destruction of its own client base and their loans, in my view, will cost it more than it will bring in in the longer-term.
• A hike of 50bps will further amplify the already destructive force of precautionary savings wrecking destruction across the Irish domestic economy. This effect will be driven by two forces. First, any money the banks take in higher mortgage rates will not be recycled into the economy through higher investment or new lending because the banks will force the new cash into capital reserves to pay down defaulting debts. Thus, every penny taken by the banks in will mean a one-for-one contraction in direct consumer spending and household investment, amplified through the usual multiplier effects 3-4 fold in the course of just one year. Second, households will now rationally expect more hikes in mortgage rates, thus increasing further their saving. For every €1 that BofI, AIB, ptsb, and the rest of the gang collect from mortgage holders, consumer spending will therefore decline by at least €4-5.

The BofI move today is, therefore, equivalent to a deranged asylum patient having fallen off the cliff, hanging onto the last available branch of a tree frantically sawing off the said branch with a fervor.

And since we are on the theme of deranged asylum patients, why not mention the latest, and perhaps the most comical idea our state-backed financial engineers can conjure: the Anglo Irish Bank taking over Quinn Insurance. That one is equivalent to AIG being taken over by General Motors. A bank that is as full of bad loans as Hindenberg was full of hydrogen is taking over an insurance company that is so disturbingly short of capital - sparks are flying from underneath its wheels.

What can possibly go wrong here? Oh, just about countless more billions from the taxpayers wasted...

Economics 08/04/2010: AIB first Nama loans

Earlier this week, Nama had completed the first transfer of loans from AIB. Per official report, Nama bought loans with a nominal value of €3.29bn for €1.9bn in NAMA bonds, implying a discount of 42.2%. This was below the discount of 43% announced by the Minister for Finance last week.

But what do these figures mean? Without knowing exact nature of the loans, it is hard to tell just how much did Nama over pay for the loans. Here is an averages-based estimate, however.

First, let us reproduce the original claimed discount of 42.2% using averages. Table below does exactly this:
In the above, I assume:

1. Vintages of loans transfer running between 2005 and 2007;
2. 2 year roll up on interest maximum allowed in the loan covenants;
3. Roll up of interest commencing at a new rate in year 2008 and running through 2009;
4. 2 scenarios of average interest rates applied (Scenario 1: 5% pa, Scenario 2: 6% pa) – as you shall see below, these are optimistic rates;
5. Declines in values affecting different vintages as follows: loans of 2007 vintage – decline of 50% in value of the loan; loans of 2006 vintage – 40% and loans of 205 vintage – 35%.

As the last row shows, taking a simple average across all scenarios and vintages yields a discount on the loan face value of 41.7%, which, factoring in 0.5% Nama-reported risk margin yields the effective rate of 42.2% - bang on with the desired.

Having matched Nama numbers, let’s examine the assumptions and bring them closer to reality:

1. Let us use the actual average annual lending rates for non-financial corporations reported by the Central Bank Table B2 (here)
2. Let us also adjust the loans for security of collateral claims – remember, per official statements from Nama many loans (in the Anglo case up to 20%) are non-secured, with effective claims against the underlying assets of nil) – to do this, we induce the following security risk adjustments to value: 6% for vintages of 2005, 9% for vintages of 2006 and 12% for vintages of 2007. So the average is 9.9%. Although these are significant, remember – reports of 20% for Anglo loans are based on untested cases. It remains to be seen how higher these will go should other lenders contest Nama take over of the claims.
3. Since Nama valuations were carried out through November 2009, we must factor in further declines in value, so let us push up value discounts to 35% of 2005 vintages, 45% on 2006 vintages and 55% on 2007 vintages. Again, these are conservative, given evidence presented in the commercial courts.
4. Instead of running alternative interest rates scenarios (remember – I am taking actual rates reported by the Central Bank), take two different scenarios on vintages compositions: Scenario A assumes uniform distribution of loans across three vintages, Scenario B assumes a 20% for 2005 vintage, 30% for 2006 vintage and 50% for 2007 vintage split.
5. Finally, let us estimate two other alternative scenarios: Scenario 1 has no mark ups charged on average lending rates, Scenario 2 has a set of mark up reflective of higher risk perception of loans, especially in 2008-2009 period. Remember, lenders became unwilling to provide funding for property investments in 2008-2009, which means they would be expected to charge a higher interest rate (risk premium) on loans related to property than those reflected in the average corporate lending rates.

Tables below show the results of model estimation:
Alternative scenario 1: Nama overpayment over the current market value ranges between 42% and 51% or €561-638 million.
Alternative scenario 2: Nama overpayment over the current market value ranges between 48% and 57% or €617-688 million.

So averaging across two tables: Nama overpayment on AIB tranche 1 loans is estimated at between 42% and 57% or between €561 million and €688 million. At a lower estimate range, this suggests that Nama is at a risk of overpaying some €26 billion for the loans it purchases, should this type of valuations proceed.


Of course, some would say this overpayment reflects the expected long term economic valuation of these loans. Fine. Suppose it does – how long can it take for the LTEV to be realised to break even (real terms) on Nama assets then?

Let’s make two assumptions:

• suppose that Irish property markets see price increases of 150% of expected economic growth,
• suppose that expected long term economic growth will average in real terms between 2% and 3% per annum.

If Nama overpays 48% on the current value of the assets (lower range of my estimate), Nama will break even – absent its own costs of operations and funding – and assuming full recovery of the loans per their value – by the end of 2027 if the growth rate average 3% pa or by the end of 2035 if the growth rate averages 2% pa in real terms.

If Nama overpays at the top of the estimates range – 57%, then real recovery will take up to the end of 2039 if the average annual growth rate is 3% or up to 2053 is the average growth rate is 2% per annum.

Again – notice that these figures do not include:

• Legal costs of running Nama;
• Losses that might occur on the loans since November 30, 2009 valuation cut off date;
• 3 years long roll up interest holiday built into Nama;
• Operating costs of running Nama (inclusive of very costly advisers it contracts);
• Cost of Nama bonds financing
• Cost of actual working through the bad loans

Still thinking Anglo is the worst case scenario for us?

Economics 07/04/2010: Another lesson from Greece

The lessons for Ireland from Greece are just keep on coming. In the weeks when the Irish Government is engaging in talks with the Unions concerning the reversal of budgetary reductions passed in Budget 2010, the Greeks are offering a somber reminder of what happens to the countries with runaway public finances.

The most important news in the last week or so was the renewal of the upward crawl in the spread of Greek bonds over German bund. The spreads have jumped from about 300bps to 400bps with Greek 10-year bond yields hitting a high of 7.161%.

Let us put this number into perspective. Irish Government currently is borrowing at around 4.6% per annum. This means that annually we are paying €46 million interest bill per each €1 billion borrowed. Through 2015, the total cumulative and compounded Irish Government cost of borrowing will equal, therefore, to €309.8 million per each €1 billion borrowed.

Now, were we borrowing at Greek rates, the same bill would be €514 million or 66% higher than current. Taking official projections for deficit, this means that at Greek rates of recklessness, Ireland Inc would be facing a deficit financing cost of €18.3 billion, as opposed to the current projected cost of €11.2 billion.

Short term borrowing would also be a problem, with Greek 2-year bonds yields jumping up by more than 1.2% to 6.48% overnight last – a record for any sovereign country.

Now, of course the Greeks are a basket case. Latest Eurostat revisions of its budgetary data show that actual deficit reached 13% of GDP in 2009. But Ireland is a close second here – with our deficit as a fraction of our real economy (GNP) being bang on with the Greek latest revisions. Worse than that, Greek economy has shrunk only by about 1/5 of the decline experienced by Ireland.

If you think that Greek rates extreme moves are a temporary blip on the market radar, think again. Greeks are preparing a Yankee bond offer in the US, and per Bloomberg reports, the markets are expecting pricing in the region of 7.25% yield for 10 year paper, or 410bps premium on the German bunds. Per Bloomberg report, Greek yields are now consistent with corporate junk bond yields.

And in a final note to the Unions here at home, Les Echos Jacques Delpla makes a very strong point that based on Fisher’s theory of debt deflation, it is a mountain of private debt, not public debt, that implies PIIGS are even in more deep trouble than the bond markets might suggest. Wage inflation (in real terms outpacing economic growth) and private debt increases (also in excess of real growth in the economy) during the boom times are now inducing a deleveraging withdrawal of consumers and investors from PIIGS. In the end, this is a much greater threat than the Exchequer deleveraging.

Good luck to all our Bearded Keynesians (or shall me say ‘Marxists’, for I doubt Keynes would have favoured an idea of piling up more Exchequer liabilities when deficits are running in double digits).

Economics 6/04/2010: QNHS - the figures of despair

Time to take a closer look at the latest data from Quarterly National Household Survey - released a week ago. The focus below is on less recognized trends, so endure the charts...

Chart above shows the dramatic declines in our labour force and an even more dramatic decline of those in the labour force who are currently employed. In effect, unemployment has consumed two years worth of gains in jobs, plus another 3.5 years worth of increases in participation. Overall, we are now back in Q2 2004 when it comes to employment figures.

As a result, unemployment soared, but what we tend to forget in looking at the headline figure is that long term unemployment - lagging ordinary unemployment by some 12 months or more - is now precipitously rising...
Chart above shows that contrary to all the talk about 'bottoming out', the latest fall-off in unemployment recorded in Q4 2009 is seasonally consistent with normal patterns, implying that in all likelihood, unemployment figures will remain on the rise from Q1 2010 on.
Looking at employment changes broken down by occupation, it is clear that the crisis has seen most of jobs destruction focused at the bottom of earnings distribution - in areas that are less skills-intensive. There are, most likely, several reasons for this:

• Professional and Managerial grades are usually occupied by people with longer on-the-job tenure, making them more expensive to lay off, and more likely to be part owners of businesses and professional practices;
• Sales and Other are more flexible workforce components, linked closely to internal demand;
• One interesting change is amongst operative workers. This category includes some construction workers, but in general, it does appear to suggest that exporting sectors growth over 2008 was more likely underpinned by transfer pricing by multinational rather than by real expansion of physical production.

Overall, however, it is worth noting that occupations with greater human capital intensity of production are holding up much much better than those where people are closer substitutes for technology and machinery.

Change in working hours also reveals some interesting features of the changing labour force:
We clearly are having a secondary crisis in terms of under-employment, whereby workers might be retaining jobs, but their hours worked are being cut back dramatically. Percentage of full time jobs has clearly declined, while part-time jobs are on the rise.

And unemployment is becoming a long-term condition for an increasing number of workers:
The numbers are pretty self-explanatory, except that one must add to these figures an observation - long-term unemployed are much harder to shift off the welfare than those in shorter term unemployment. Note that 29,400 long-term unemployed back in 2007 were pretty much unchanged since the beginning of the century. Since then, however, we just added 59,700 more of those who are risking to becoming permanently unemployed into the future.
While unemployment increases (chart above) were the feature of 2008 labour market collapse, job seekers (both in education and outside), underemployment rises and full-time employment fall-off were the main features of of 2009. These are likely to remain dominant in 2010 as well as unemployment reaches deeper into skills distribution over time.

This is confirmed in the following chart:
Notice that S3 and S2 (broader) categories of stressed workers are rising faster through out 2009 than the more narrow unemployed category. Should the positive move in Q4 figures be reversed (see above discussion), there is significant likelihood that these broader categories will continue to increase at a faster pace than simple unemployment measure, further increasing surplus capacity in the economy and putting more income uncertainty onto the shoulders of those still in full-time work.

Returning back to the issue of skills: chart above shows that both in 2008 and 2009 workers with greater human capital attainment were in lower risk of unemployment than those with lower educational attainment. Of course, this is a result of several forces:

1. Workers with higher educational attainment tend to be more productive in same occupations;
2. Workers with higher educational attainment tend to have better aptitude;
3. Workers with higher educational attainment are also more likely to engage in continued up-skilling and on-the-job training;
4. Workers with higher educational attainment tend to possess more flexible sets of skills;
5. Workers with higher educational attainment tend to be employed in more competitive and exports-oriented sectors and companies, etc.
   

All of this, however, suggests that human capital matters even in amidst a wholesale collapse of the labour market experienced in Ireland.
And, as chart above shows, workers with higher human capital attainment are also more likely to be fully engaged in the labour force. Which means two things:

1. Human capital is an important differentiator in a recession; and
2. Those currently fuelling longer-term unemployment are more likely to be with lower skills, and thus are more likely to exit labour force and remain outside the labour force for a much longer period of time.

In short, we are now at risk of creating a permanent underclass of under-skilled and under-employed.

And to conclude - two charts on comparisons between Ireland and the rest of EU27:
Participation figures above clearly show that our labour force has experienced a much more dramatic collapse than in any other country in the European Union. At the same time, our unemployment has risen less drmatically:
Which suggests that the gap between us and the worst performing European countries (Spain and the Baltics) masks a much more troubling reality: Irish unemployed are much more likely to drop out of the labour force (and thus out of unemployment counts) than those in other European countries.

This, of course, is a sign of much deeper despair.

Economics 06/04/2010: Return of the markets

Another 'Must Read' from WSJ - Gary Becker on Obamanomics, health care reform and why Americans will opt once again for Smaller Government with more checks and balances on the power of bureaucracy. Read it here.

Perhaps the most insightful - from our point of view here in Ireland - is Becker's arguments about interest groups-driven poor legislation that ossifies into innovation-choking regulatory diktat absent proper competition between interest groups acting as a (limited) check on the corrupting power of tax-and-spend politics.

having just returned from the Western sea board, I can testify to that corrupting power. Take a small town, popular with summer vacationers, I visited. Bungalows piled mile-high - crowding each other and older homes. Local county councilors own, per local paper expose, many of these, with some holding mortgages on 7-9 of such vacation properties, with section 30 tax breaks attached to make the deal sweeter. Scores of developments (not one-offs) were built in violation of planning permissions granted. And scores of planning permissions were granted in violation of the standard building codes.

As a friend of mine has described the countryside: 'You have D4 folks with homes, back then, worth some €4-5 million rushing to buy public-housing-styled vacation homes for a €1 million-plus with an illusion that these were to be their country retreats. And the Government was dishing out tax breaks...'

We clearly have no competing interest groups - just a Social partnership feeding party.

Economics 1/04/2010: Travel time? Not a chance.

Hat tip to the Machholtz's blog - the link to my participation on Wide Angle (Newstalk 106FM) here. Discussing Nama...

The thing is - when all sides of political spectrum agree that we have taken a wrong path to banks crisis solutions, why is the Government failing to listen? Is the answer boiling down to the 1,500 jobs still remaining in the Anglo? Is it all about projecting the optics, buying time at the expense of the future of this country?


On today's data release from CSO:

• Trips to Ireland by overseas residents in January 2010 - down 26% to 313,800 from January 2009, an overall decrease of 110,400
• Visitors from Great Britain - down by 31.6% to 142,400
  
• Visitors from 'other Europe' and North America down by 29.7% and 2.2% respectively
• Trips from residents of other areas rose by 4.2%
• The largest decreases from overseas visitors to Ireland were: Great Britain (-65,900), Poland (-7,800), France (-7,000), Italy (-5,700) and Germany (-5,200)
  

In the mean time, Irish residents made 448,900 overseas trips in January 2010 or 10.6% fewer than in January 2009.
Travel tax, as expected with all trade barriers, is not an effective measure of domestic industry protection. Instead, it is yet another quick fix revenue raising measure that hurts more than it delivers.

Don't believe me? Well, aside from several independent analysts reports, even Aer Lingus (our Government's cheerleader airline) and Bloxham Stockbrokers (not exactly known for their fortitude when it comes to criticising the Government) agree.