19/7/15: The Hardships of our Politico's Public Sacrifices: Pensions

One of them rare occasions that RTE supplies a superb data summary. This time around - it is on politicians' pensions packages: http://www.rte.ie/iu/pensions/.

Just take a look how the Great of this Land live... at your expense...

19/7/15: Ireland's Commitment to Competition in Banking... It's Overwhelming...

Let's take three stylised facts:

Fact 1: Irish Government policy from 2010 on consisted of two contradictory objectives: sector consolidation in the hands of 3 Pillar banks, and rhetorical justification of higher lending margins as being necessary to attract new competition to the market.

Fact 2: In recent months, the only significant uplift in new lending to non-financial enterprises took place in the segment of larger corporates, larger loans issuance, consistent with lower risk lending.

Over the last 24 months (though April 2015), compared to 24 months through April 2013, quantum of new loans issued to households in Ireland fell 14.1%, while new loans issued to Non-Financial Corporates rose 31.2%. Within the corporate market segment,  larger (>1 million euro) loans rose 43.6% for loans with short rate fix, and 83.2% for longer rate fix. Smaller corporate loans (<1 12.2="" 44.2="" and="" by="" euro="" fell="" fix.="" fix="" for="" in="" lending="" longer="" million="" nbsp="" new="" p="" rose="" short="" term="" volume="">
Fact 3: In the segment of safest (lowest risk) new lending, Irish banks currently enjoy high margins compared to their euro area counterparts and compared to historical averages for their own market history.

So what is the outcome of the three facts above? Where did we get with this model of higher charges = greater competition when it comes to banking?

Now, remember, Ireland pursued the same model (higher charges on end-users in exchange for more competition) in energy sector under the CER regulatory remit for years. As the result, we achieved the exact opposite: no real competition and highest / second highest energy costs in Europe.

Just as in the energy sector, in Irish banking, the incumbents are enjoying pricing power protected by the State policy. Just as we talk about competition, markets and consumer benefits... Aptly, the degree of market concentration in the hands of incumbent banks in Ireland rose from the average of 0.0547 for 1997-2006 period to 0.0674 for 2009-2014. 

Just because we really, really, really 'want' competition for our banks...

17/7/15: Eurogroup tightens screws on Greece: Bridge v MoU

Eurogroup statement on Greece (h/t @FGoria):

Key:

• Bridge finance via EFSM (as rumoured, so no surprise here);
• Bridge finance security cushion via SMP profits being moved to an escrow account (unexpected) clearly to ensure Denmark's and UK agreement to use EFSM. Bad news: SMP profits should be rebated back to Greece to alleviate debt burden, not 'securitised' to increase debt burden;
• Good bit - SMP profits are to be returned to Greece unless used as EFSM bridge loan cushion. So at some point in time, Greeks will get these funds to, presumably, cover a part of bridge finance funding;
• The bit "...he risks of not concluding swiftly the negotiations with the ESM remain fully with Greece" (emphasis mine). This amounts to setting pressure very high on Greek Government to basically accept MoU conditions unaltered, as presented to them and, thus, makes the very idea of 'negotiations' a farce. Given that EFSM cover (bridge) is only for July, at most for first week of August, this statement basically puts Greece on notice: either agree immediately to ESM (Bailout 3.0) conditions or face a loss of SMP funds on top of everything else.

In effect, Eurogroup is driving home the tactical advantages gained by over-extending Bridge loan negotiations into the last minute and from Tsipras' total surrender at July 12-13 meetings. Greece has no where to go, but to ESM at this stage, so my suspicion is that MoU will be tougher than Bailout in Principle position of July 12-13.

17/7/15: Brussels makes its excuses and leaves us with no answers

My op-ed for Irish Independent on the EU Commission report on Ireland's 'Adjustment Programme' 2010-2013 and its analysis of the Irish Banking Guarantees: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/brussels-makes-its-excuses-and-leaves-us-with-no-answers-31383508.html.

17/7/15: ECB Rate Decision & Monetary Conditions in the Euro Area

Yesterday, ECB left unchanged their key policy rates. Updating my central banks' policy charts,

First, current policy rates for major advanced economies:

Next: duration and magnitude of rates overshooting (target range set outside mean (pre-crisis period, Euro coverage) +/-1/2 STDEV)

We are now into 80th consecutive month of interest rates statistically outside the mean range, with magnitude of deviation of some 3.05% down on the mean. This implies mean-reversion (increase in the rates) of between 2.70-3.4%.

Meanwhile, 12 mo Euribor margin over policy rates is up to 0.119% in Jul (to-date) compared to 0.113% in June. Corporate rates for new loans (>1mln Euro and 1-5 years duration) margin over ECB rate was up at 2.28% in May compared to 2.03% in April. May was the month when direction of Euribor margin diverged from direction of corporate loans margin, implying increase in banks margins.

Overall, the above shows that pressure on rates reversion to the mean is building up, while banks margins were improving (though we only have data through May on this). Nonetheless, banks margins are down on 2012-2014 averages, implying that more of the costs of any mean reversion in policy rates under current conditions will have to be absorbed by the borrowers.

Good thing, ECB is in no rush to get ahead on rates increases, yet…

16/7/15: Lifting Greek ELA by Eur900mln: Tiny Step, Strong Signaling

So ECB lifted Greek banks' ELA by EUR900mln to EUR89.9 billion today for the first time since June 23rd.

This suggests that Mario Draghi and the team ECB have found a way, for now, to set aside all concerns about Greek banks solvency and extend the lifeline to Greek banks until at least the end of July. The lifeline, however is not sufficient to cover deposits withdrawals that would occur if the Greek government were to lift capital controls.

Going forward - two-three weeks time, the ECB will have to deal with two issues at the same time:

• Increase ELA once again and do it either in small drip format (as today) - sustaining capital controls and possibly even extending these to cover corporate sector - or increase ELA by EUR5-7 billion to cover built up of demand for deposits monetisation and corporates' operational pressures; and
• Addressing the severity of ECB haircuts on Greek banks' collateral eligible for ELA. Here, the problem is severe: even before the mess with capital controls, Greek banks held poor cushion of eligible collateral. With capital controls, this cushion is even weaker as many households and companies have stopped funding their loans. The ECB will have to lower haircuts on collateral and/or broaden collateral pool - both moves would be hard to pass as it is now publicly apparent to all that Greek banks health is deteriorating rapidly. 

So today's moves is a small positive of largely symbolic size. Much work is yet to be done...

16/7/15: Ah Shure, matey, de Banks were Solvent... and Still Are...

You know the meme... "Banks are/were solvent"... It replays itself over and over again, most recently - well, just now - in the Banking Inquiry hearings in Ireland.

Ok, so they are:

Source: http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/03/non-performing-loans-europe/

Yes, that is 4 years after Irish banks were recapitalised, more than 3 years after they passed 'stringent' stress-tests and over 2 years of 'rigourous' work-outs (with 'strict' targets being met) of NPLs.

16/7/15: Thinking of Nama, don't forget them IBRC junior IOUs sale...

Having just posted on Nama's latest basking in the spotlight here, I came across this good old Namawinelake analysis of yet another debacle Nama was a player in: the IBRC junior notes sale.

Yes, that is yet another EUR440 million wasted, burned through, by the exceptionally skilled (otherwise, why would they enjoy such lavish pay) business brains in Nama that are also so concerned for maximising returns to taxpayers?

16/7/15: Nama: The Gift of Giving That Keeps on Giving...

While Greece is limping to its Bailout 3.0, our national heroes at Nama are busy fighting massive (California-sized) forest fires.

The Northern Ireland story (covered on this blog here) is refusing to go away:

1. An academic legal eagle exposition from the U.S. It's in NYTimes, which is on the 'radar' of all our development agencies (the folks that do have Good Minister's ear to whisper into).
2. And Irish News is covering the statement issued by Mr. Ian Coulter, the former managing partner of Belfast law firm Tughans. Sluggerotool.com covers same with extra details. Same covered in the Journal.ie piece here.
3. A good article from the Irish Times on Cerberus (the fund in the middle of Nama's Northern Ireland's case) and its use of Irish companies as vehicles for purchasing some EUR19 billion worth of assets. "Each of the Irish companies owns hundreds of millions, or in some cases billions, of euro in assets but has no employees in Ireland and in some instances, pays no corporation tax here. Cerberus has established at least 10 such companies in Ireland since it started its European property loan shopping spree in 2013, all of which appear to be owned by Promontoria, a Dutch fund that is 100 per cent owned by Cerberus Capital Management." 
4. Another person in the middle of Norther Irish deal - Mr. Frank Cushnahan was, it appears, a 'serial director' in "over 30 companies" according to this article in the Irish Times. Which, obviously, qualified him to advise Nama.
5. Deputy Mick Wallace went on to add to the story, claiming that Nama was aware of the suspicious aspects of transaction in the North, 'since January'. Nama categorically denied this.
6. The UK National Crime Agency will investigate Deputy Wallace's claims.

Meanwhile, back at the foot of this mountain of proverbial... err... at home in Dublin, revelations that our Government appointments to Nama posts could have been... surprise-surprise... political. Who would have thought this much?

There is a documentary trail now to prove that Nama was a party to Government-related discussions about 'fixing' the land market in the Republic. In this, the State's objective of attempting to control the supply of land for development and improve saleability of assets is uncovered and Nama cooperation is identified. Nothing like manipulating the markets as a direct policy objective, folks. We had, of course, back in June this year, Deputy Mick Wallace's allegations that Nama has some unorthodox dealings with the rental sector in Ireland, allegedly "a “cartel” of big property owners had driven up rental costs in Dublin" as “A small group of players now control a large chunk of the rental market in Dublin"... He also said Nama likes to sell properties in big blocks “that only investment funds, vulture funds, mostly from America, have the money to be buying”.

A good old article from Bloomberg archives covering another Nama deal fiasco. The deal was a dodo: Morgan Stanley bought about 220 million pounds of loans to West Properties for "about 65 million pounds ($103 million), or a 70 percent discount". Nama does not sell properties to parties connected to original developers... you know...

And to top it all, we have a new load of revelations from Mick Wallace, TD on further fun-under-the-sun relating to the Holy Grail of Irish Solutions to Irish Problems: the claim made under "Dáil privilege, ... a person in construction who wanted to exit NAMA and was asked to pay €15,000 “in a bag – in cash.”

Wallace also referenced recently the Chicago Spire case (covered earlier here in my compendium of 10 worst deals on Nama's record). A quote: "I would like NAMA to explain its approach when a bidder went to buy not the loans but the debt of the Chicago Spire, which was at $78 million plus costs which brought it to approximately $93 million. An investor sought to buy the debt, and this was every penny that was owed to the bank. This was not the reduced value, but the par value. In other words, this investor was prepared to pay the debt in full but NAMA gave it to Jones Lang LaSalle in New York to sell. This was a site in Chicago. Even if NAMA thought it could get more for it, it was not in New York that it would have got it. It would have been interesting if it had marketed it in Chicago. Why could NAMA not accept the debt being bought out? It is estimated that it was sold for $35 million. NAMA refused $78 million, plus the cost, and it accepted a figure in the region of €35 million. That was claimed to be in the interests of the taxpayer."

It is worth repeating that Nama has denied any wrongdoing in any of the above cases and has now requested that Gardai investigate Deputy Wallace's claims. All other players in the Northern Ireland saga also denied allegations.

Of course, when it comes to Nama asking Gardai to investigate N. Irish deal allegations and denying any knowledge of wrongdoing, without putting their intent and their denial into question, one might recall that Nama is fully aware of another wrongdoing relating to IBRC interest rate overcharging (as detailed and documented here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/11615-full-letter-concerning-ibrc.html). But so far, Nama is in no rush to address the matter it has been notified about some ages ago (see details here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/12615-anglo-overcharging-saga-ganley.html). Lest we forget, NAMA was the biggest buyer of the IBRC loans to which the interest overcharging applied, and, it is alleged (see here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/1062015-bombshell-goes-off-on-anglo.html), this overcharging continued for loans transferred to Nama and still continues, despite the High Court Ruling of October 2014.

15/7/15: Greece is Not Unique in Dissing EU Commitments

In previous two posts, I explored couple of angles on the famous Trust thingy that, allegedly, Greece so massively lacks. But, of course, my comparatives related to the 'peripheral' euro states, mostly Ireland. You can use the same two charts to draw conclusions on comparing Greek performance to other states, but the question still remains: outside the 'periphery' just how much Trust currency is there in circulation in the EU?

Take countries that are not in the group of borrowers from the IMF. There should be plenty of Trust to go around amongst them and the EU. And this means there should be plenty of agreement between their policies and the policies suggested to them by the Commission, especially those aimed at addressing that major burner of Trust - failure to comply with core fiscal criteria.

We can take a snapshot of this 'metric' of Trust by looking at how severely do EU member states deviate in their policies from the Commission prescriptions. This 'metric', after all, is an exact replica of the arguments advanced in the Eurogroup in the context of accusing Greece of wasting EU's trust.

So here is a handy chart, from the EU Commission:

What the above shows is that back in 2013 all of the EU states who were issued with 'country-specific recommendations' concerning their poor fiscal performance opted to ignore these recommendations. That is some Trust, there.

Between 2011-2012 and 2013 the extent of non-compliance did not decline (despite all the talk about austerity and structural reforms), but rose both on average and specifically in 10 out of 14 countries covered by these recommendations. That's some more Trust, right there.

On average, in 2013, some 43% of all EU Commission recommendations were not implemented by the states that are so distinctly Trustworthy from Greece, that Greece was singled out as a special case by the Eurogroup and the Euro Council.

Some of the worst offenders was Germany, and its pal (in berating Greece) Lithuania, plus the usual suspects of Italy and France.

Now, I am not a fan of EU Commission recommendations. But the fact is: Greece is by far not unique in terms of 'reforms' fatigue or lack of engagement with the EU Commission proposals on fiscal adjustments.

15/7/15: Is it Trust or Fiscal Performance? Greece v Excessive Deficit Procedures

As noted in the previous post, that Trustless Greece apparently is a better example of European policies of internal devaluation at work than the best-in-class Ireland. At least by metric of competitiveness.

But what about Fiscal Trust? After all, there is a unifying metric for that one - the European Commission own Excessive Deficit Procedure. And here is a handy table from EU Commission own presentation on the topic:

Yes, yes... a little help. Since 1997 (that is across the Celtic Tiger era boom too), Ireland was on the penalty bench with EU in relation to breaking fiscal rules for 11 years. Greece - also 11 years. One has zero Trust in its EU account. The other has Fort Knox worth of that 'hard' EU currency...

Either the Rule is dodgy or something's fishy in the arithmetic...

15/7/15: Is it Trust or Competitiveness? Greece v Unit Labour Costs

Remember hard currency of Europe - no not the euro - Trust? And remember how Greeks lack that currency because of failed reforms and incomplete adjustments?

Here's a nice chart from the EU Commission itself showing changes in economic competitiveness (the EU fetishised) metric of Unit Labour Costs.

In this, untrustworthy Greece is more competitive in 2013-2015 than the best-in-class Ireland. 

So if the internal devaluations work their magic, as the EU seems to believe, then by this metric, Greece should have been a roaring success story... with a surplus of Trust to spare some for Ireland.

Then, again, the EU won't notice other factors at play in determining GDP growth. The idiosyncratic ones, like, say, corporate tax inversions and 'knowledge development boxes' or (whispering) taxation double-sandwiches for lunch... Because everything is about Trust in Europe...