Stress tests - same (sad) old story

The publication of the results of the latest stress test performed on US banks does little to inspire longterm confidence in the ability of the financial system to be protected from another (near) meltdown. We repeat our contention that only a limited purpose banking system will give near certainty that taxpayers will never again have to be called upon to bail out insolvent banks.

Conflicts of Interest in Investment Banking

The discussion about separating banking and securities and investment banking has reached a dead end. But the inherent conflicts of interest in an investment banking world where intermediaries directly compete with their supposed customers (the word client is no longer appropriate) will always tempt service providers to treat their clients as 'muppets'. Maybe not even reverting to the rules imposed by Glass Steagall would be enough to improve the situation and the principal trading function and the customer advisory side should be separated like they were in the UK brokerage business before 'Big Bang'. This would mean that salespeople and corporate finance advisers would have more incentive to work with and for their clients. As long as this is not feasible the only protection for customers - be they individual investors or 'sophisticated' professionals working for fund managers or corporates - is to follow the old rule of  'Buyer Beware' and not to be too trusting when dealing with their sell-side counterparts. All too often they fall for sales patter, get taken in by glossy brochures and forget to check if there are better terms available in the market.

Political pressure to prevent CDS on Greece to pay out?

The example of a minor Austrian bank demonstrates the potential fallout that can be expected if CDS sellers are required to pay out in case Greece is 'officially' (by the insider-dominated ISDA committee) declared to be in default. Kommunalkreditbank - already rescued by the Austrian government - could be required to pay out in the high hundreds of millions of Euros if it is required to pay out on the CDS contracts it has sold. One has to assume that the Austrian government - and quite a few others - are not too keen to see the ISDA committee to declare that a credit event means that CDS contracts have to be paid out. Who will be brave enough to sue the Committee? Don't expect any help from the regulators - they are in the pockets of politicians who probably snigger about the fact that the CDS market has been little less than a game like the many online games - a financial markets farmville.
"Since when is a country's defaulting on its debt not a credit event?" asks Alan Abelson (Barron's)

CDS - a misconceived instrument is Null and Void

Says today's headline in a newspaper (City AM). To leave the decision about whether or not a CDS pays out in a 'credit event' to a group of market insiders at a private industry association such as ISDA makes a mockery of proper regulation in financial markets. Especially as the members of the relevant ISDA committee are the largest users and providers of credit default swaps who have made vast profits from this market during the past ten years. No surprise that the author states that "The decision has been criticised by some as making a mockery of credit default swaps on sovereign debt. These critics believe that their value has now been permanently undermined." We could not agree more and every user of this market has to face a negligence claim from his investors if he uses this product in the future. We always thought that the construction of the CDS contract was overly complicated and likely to lead to disagreement exactly at the point in time when they would be needed most, i.e. in a credit event. Would it not have been more sensible to design a product similar to an option? This could have been exercised at any time - credit event or not - simply based on the price performance of the underlying securities.

Charlie Munger on Derivatives in 2003

"But I confidently predict that there are big troubles to come. The system is almost insanely irresponsible. And what people think are fixes aren’t really fixes. It’s so complicated I can’t do it justice here – but you can’t believe the trillions of dollars involved. You can’t believe the complexity. You can’t believe how difficult it is to do the accounting. You can’t believe how big the incentives are to have wishful thinking about values, and wishful thinking about ability to clear."

Assuming a Meteorite hits New York

all banks in the USA may see their ratings downgraded. That seems to be the logic behind the thinking that causes Tom Brown to decry the latest 'nonsense from the rating agencies'. Banking as it is conducted at present will always pose a certain amount of risk - only 'limited purpose banking' that turns banks into a sort of mutual fund would avoid any risk of failure. As a consequence, war games based on worst case scenarios may be of intellectual interest but they also undermine the credibility of rating agencies.

UBS appoints ex Bear Stearns CFO to senior role

One can only wonder, and wonder and wonder again about the Personnel Policy (if you can call it that) at UBS. Just last week someone still working there said that the people around him change constantly, there is an annual turnover rate of 70 pct. Now the firm pins its hopes on Sam Molinaro, and he is based in far away New York. Given the fate of his last employer and how long he was away from the major league - can this be any help for the once proud ship UBS? Does the bank have nobody in its ranks who could to this job?

Toxic Mix - Politics and Consultants

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) had enough problems at its hands before a young and inexperienced politician and a consulting firm made its life near-impossible. Running a bank after a near-death experience due to overreach by its previous CEO and board (some members inexplicably still have not been purged) is a tough assignment. When a chancellor with hardly any real business experience outside the charmed circle of lobbies and professional party politics tries to micro-manage a business the task becomes impossible - especially when nimble competitors do not face similar constraints. And giving a consulting firm carte blanche to meddle in this situation cannot help much to safeguard the ailing ship RBS. Staff of the consulting firms often are quite young and have no practical business experience worth mentioning. Even senior consultants often have moved up the consulting ranks and have similar deficiencies with respect to real business life. If anything, they might be busy trying to jump ship to a position on 'the other side of the fence'. Quite a number of senior positions in Financial Institutions are held by former Consultants and we are polite enough to describe their track record as 'mixed' at best.

Compensation under control?

Despite our recent positive comment on Barclays Bank we have to put out a critical comment about the compensation practices at the leading (only?) British Investment Bank. It is risible that compensation increases by 2 pct during 2011 when total headcount drops by 6000 over the year. It means that 'cheap' bank and support staff was 'cut' while expensive staff in 'Wealth Management' and Investment Banking was added. This may be an explanation but it should not be an excuse for lax oversight.

Goldman Spin Master to retire

Goldman's public image suffered a few scratches during the past few years. So when we spotted that the firm's PR supremo was leaving after 12 years with the firm we were reminded of the time when (investment) banks and many other businesses got by without spin masters, and a happy time it was. After all, all that really counts is how well you work for your clients (or should one only say customers these days?). They pay the bills and word of mouth does the rest. Which CFO would really allocate a piece of business according to the size of a corporate image ad in the latest edition of Euromoney (or the FT). Good PR means to answer the hard questions in a straightforward way, and most importantly, do business the honest way. If that is not evident to the outside world than the best PR campaign is only wasted money.