Economics 24/04/2010: Greece and Ireland

The unedited version of my op-ed in today's Irish Independent (link here)

“It’s been a brilliant day,” said a friend of mine who manages a large investment fund, as we sat down for a lunch in a leafy suburb of Dublin. “We’ve been exiting Greece’s credit default swaps all morning long.” Having spent a couple of months strategically buying default insurance on Greek bonds, known as CDS contracts, his fund booked extraordinary profits.

This wasn’t luck. Instead, he took an informed bet against Greece, and won. You see, in finance, as in life, that which can’t go on, usually doesn’t: last morning, around 9 am Greek Government has finally thrown in the towel and called in the IMF.

As a precursor to this extraordinary collapse of one of the eurozone’s members, Greece has spent the last ten years amassing a gargantuan pile of public debt. Ever since 1988, successive Greek governments paid for their domestic investment and spending out of borrowed cash. Just as Ireland, over the last 22 years, Greece has never managed to achieve a single year when its Government structural balance – the long-term measure of public finances sustainability – were in the black.

Finally, having engaged in a series of cover-ups designed to conceal the true extent of the problem, the Greek economy has reached the point of insolvency. As of today, Greece is borrowing some 13.6% of its domestic output to pay for day-to-day running of the state. The country debt levels are now in excess of 115%. Despite the promise from Brussels that the EU will stand by Greece, last night Greek bonds were trading at the levels above those of Kenya and Colombia.

Hence, no one was surprised when on Friday morning the country asked the IMF and the EU to provide it with a loan to the tune of €45 billion. This news is not good for the Irish taxpayers.

Firstly, despite the EU/IMF rescue funds, Greece, and with it the Euro zone, is not out of the woods. The entire package of €45 billion, promised to Greece earlier this month is not enough to alleviate longer term pressures on its Government. Absent a miracle, the country will need at least €80-90 billion in assisted financing in 2010-2012.

The IMF cannot provide more than €15 billion that it already pledged, since IMF funds are restricted by the balances held by Greece with the Fund. The EU is unlikely to underwrite any additional money, as over 70% of German voters are now opposing bailing out Greece in the first instance.

All of which means the financial markets are unlikely to ease their pressure on Greece and its second sickest Euroarea cousin, Portugal. Guess who’s the third one in line?

Ireland’s General Government deficit for 2009, as revised this week by the Eurostat, stands at 14.3% - above that of Greece and well above that of Portugal. More worryingly, Eurostat revision opened the door for the 2010 planned banks recapitalizations to be counted as deficit. If this comes to pass, our official deficit will be over 14% of GDP this year, again.

All of this means we can expect the cost of our borrowing to go up dramatically. Given that the Irish Government is engaging in an extreme degree of deficit financing, Irish taxpayers can end up paying billions more annually in additional interest charges. Adding up the total expected deficits between today and 2014, the taxpayers can end up owing an extra €1.14 billion in higher interest payments on our deficits. Adding the increased costs of Nama bonds pushes this figure to over €2.5 billion. Three years worth of income tax levies imposed by the Government in the Supplementary Budget 2009 will go up in smoke.

Second, the worst case scenario – the collapse of the Eurozone still looms large despite the Greeks request for IMF assistance. In this case, Irish economy is likely to suffer an irreparable damage. Restoration of the Irish punt would see us either wiping out our exports or burying our private economy under an even greater mountain of debt, depending on which currency valuation path we take. Either way, without having control over our exit from the euro, we will find ourselves between the rock and the hard place.

Third, regardless of whatever happens with Greece in the next few months, Irish taxpayers can kiss goodby the €500 million our Government committed to the EU rescue fund for Greece. Forget the insanity of Ireland borrowing these funds at ca 4.6% to lend to Greece at ‘close to 5%’. With bonds issuance fees, the prospect of rising interest rates and the effect this borrowing has on our deficit, the deal signed by Brian Cowen on March 26th was never expected to break even for the taxpayers. In reality, the likelihood of Greece repaying back this cash is virtually nil.

Which brings us back to our own problems. What Greek saga has clearly demonstrated is that no matter how severe the crisis might get, one cannot count on the EU’s Rich Auntie Germany to race to our rescue. We have to get our own house in order. Unions – take notice – more deficit financing risks making Ireland a client of the IMF, because in finance, as in life, what can’t go on, usually doesn’t.

Economics 01/10/2009: External Debt - still a problem

As of 30 June 2009, per CSO’s today release, “the gross external debt of all resident sectors (i.e. general government, the monetary authority, financial and non-financial corporations and households) amounted to almost €1,689bn. This represents a drop of €7bn or 0.4% …compared to the level shown (€1,696bn) at the end of March 2009.”

“…the bulk of Ireland’s external debt arises from the liabilities of IFSC financial enterprises and also that most of its overall foreign financial liabilities are offset by Irish residents’ (including IFSC) holdings of foreign financial assets.” Hmmm… again this over-emphasis of IFSC. One note of caution - we do not actually know if these 'assets' are valued at fair rates (we do not know what percentage of these assets is valued at mark-to-market, and what percentage is valued at hold-to-maturity bases), so some questions to the quality of the assets can be raised.

“Liabilities of monetary financial institutions (credit institutions and money market funds) consisting mostly of loans and debt securities were almost €691bn, a drop of almost €27bn on the 31stMarch 2009 stock level and down €117bn on the June 2008 level.” In other words, our banks are de-leveraging… as in charts below… but at whose expense?

The reduced liabilities of MFIs “are broadly reflected in the significantly increased Monetary Authority liabilities of €103bn, up by over €98bn since June 2008. These obligations are to the European System of Central Banks (ESCB)...” Aha, de-leveraging by loading up on those ECB loans, then?

But wait, there is more: “The liabilities of other sectors including those of insurance companies and pension funds, treasury companies and other relevant financial enterprises, as well as non-financial enterprises were €624bn, remaining relatively flat compared to end-March 2009. However, compared to end-June 2008, these liabilities had increased by €28bn.” Yeeeeks – banks de-leveraging is pushing ‘other sectors’ – aka the real economy – deeper into debt.

But wait, there is more: “The level of general government foreign borrowing increased by €10bn to €72bn between March and June this year and was €29bn up on the June 2008 level.” Ooops, banks are costing us here too (as do our social welfare rates and public sector wages bills).
Pull one end of the cart up, the other end sinks?

Some details on top of CSO’s release:
Table above shows percentage increases in debt levels across sectors and maturities. Pretty self-explanatory. The Exchequer is borrowing short and increasingly so. But the Exchequer is borrowing long as well, and rather aggressively as well. Monetary Authority is truly remarkable. Incidentally, MA borrowings are mostly short-term (higher than 3:1 ratio to long-term).

Banks (oh, sorry, MFIs) are cutting back debt more aggressively this year than in 2008. And, strangely enough, they are cutting more long-term debts than short-term debts (in proportional terms). Of course, this in part reflects bad loans provisions and pay downs of Irish subsidiaries debt by foreign parents.

Other sectors are rolling up accumulated interest and amassing new loans. Short-term liabilities net of trade credits are up over two years, trade credits flat over last year. What does it tell you about importing activities?
Shares of MFIs in total debt thus are falling across the years, as are FDI shares, but everything else is rising.

Looking at short vs longer term debt issuance by sector:
Monetary Authority is now almost all short-term, Government is increasingly short-termist as well. Maturity mismatch risk is rising as is, but with Nama (a rolling 6-months re-priced bond against 10-20 years work out window on loans) maturity mismatch risk on Government balance sheet will go through the roof.
MFIs short term debt is now also declining, while long term debt has been declining for some time. It would be interesting to have this broken down by foreign vs domestic lenders, but there is no such detail in CSO figures, despite CSO's constant repeating that the figures include IFSC. If IFSC is so important to this analysis - why not report it separately?

Other sectors are relatively flat, which is bad news. Trade credits flat as well.

Overall, lack of significant de-leveraging and in some cases, continued accumulation of liabilities, in the real economy.

Economics 27/09/2009: Leverage across Ireland Inc

Crunching through the IMF database on Financial Stability reveals some serious structural problems in Irish Government&Monetary Authorities positions, as well as in Banks and Non-Banking Sectors of economy. These are long-term themes worth considering.

First General Government & Monetary Authorities:
Chart below shows how extreme is our recent performance in terms of maturity mismatch risk on our General Government & Monetary Authorities debt, with Ireland now leading the group of comparable economies in terms of overall share of short-term (highest risk) borrowing relative to total borrowing.
Chart below shows that we also lead peer group of countries in terms of issuance of new debt despite the fact that the peer group includes such 'sick puppies' as Latvia, Estonia, Greece, and Hungary (some subject to IMF rescues in the last 18 months). Although IMF database does not contain comprehensive data on Iceland, it is clear that Ireland is fiscally in worse shape than all of the APIIGS and even Latvia, Estonia & Hungary. Furthermore, despite Q2 2008 announcements by the Irish Government that it will undertake significant corrective measures on fiscal insolvency side, chart below shows that our 'corrective measures' to date have been mostly about borrowing more in international markets, while the chart above shows that, increasingly, this borrowing is short-term.
Chart below provides an index of General Government and Monetary Authorities debt, setting Q4 2002 level of debt at 1. This dramatically illustrates the scale of Irish insolvency, with debt accelerating from Q1 2006 at a rate far in excess of all other peer group countries.
Banking Sector:
Looking at our banking sector, total sector debt in Ireland now exceeds all other peer countries debt, despite the fact that many of these countries have bigger economies and populations than Ireland. It is fallacious to attribute this result to the presence of IFSC institutions, as the data above is comparable with Hong Kong and Luxembourg - both of which are major IFS centres themselves.
In line with other borrowing trends, Irish banking sector now runs the second highest proportion of short term debt liabilities relative to all debt liabilities. As expected, our banking sector maturity mismatch risk is only marginally lower than the same risk in the general government and monetary authorities accounts.

Who's more reckless in risk taking, you might ask, the Exchequer or the Bankers? Sadly, when it comes to maturity mismatch risk, it is the Exchequer.The rate of debt accumulation in Irish banking sector, however, is in rude health, with banks in this country deleveraging much faster than the Exchequer (which is leveraging up instead of paying down debts, and this is before Nama), the Corporates (see below) and the Households. In other words, while the entire country is scrambling to help bankers, it is other sectors of economy that are bearing increasing burden of rising debt exposure.

Furthermore, an important footnote to Nama: chart below also indicates that the likely direction of Nama funds once banks receive state transfers will be to further reduce leveraging in the banking sector. As I have predicted earlier, Nama will be used to pay down more expensive interbank loans, with preciously nothing going into economy in the form of new credits.Index of total debt for Banks shows the rate of debt increases (leveraging up) since Q4 2002.

Non-banking Corporate Sector:
Total debt in Irish corporate (non-Banking) sector stands out as an outlier in the reference group of countries. This is an apt illustration of Corporate Ireland's obsession with leveraged buyouts, M&A binges at the top of corporate valuations and other debt-financed 'growth' deals done by Irish companies.

The above chart clearly shows the extent of the risk that is inherent in Irish Corporate Finance structure and the high probability that Nama will be followed by a new wave of banks balance sheets deterioration - this time on Irish corporate side. It also indicates that a restart of 'normal credit cycle' in Ireland will require an actual and drastic deleveraging of Irish companies, not a new lending out by the banks to prop up debt-ridden enterprises.

Chart below reinforces this point, by showing that our corporate debt represents an excessively high proportion of overall debt.
Not surprisingly, growth dynamics in Irish corporate debt were equally extreme as chart below illustrates.
Interestingly, Irish corporate borrowing activities remained relatively static when compared to the growth rate in total debt obligations of the country.Perhaps the only 'good news' is that most of our corporate borrowings were in form of longer term debt - a sign that any crisis in corporate insolvencies due to debt overhang will be delayed in time relative to other sectors (Government, Banks and even households).

Direct Investment decline:
Lastly, a quick look at direct investment flows to Ireland (from debt side). As the country engaged in uncontrolled debt spree, overall role of direct investment in economy has fallen in time from over 15% of total debt stocks to under 12%.