A SEC, o regulador do mercado de capitais americano, acusou o banco de investimentos Goldman Sachs de fraude ao não ter divulgado aos investidores em CDO (obrigações colateralizadas) certa informação vital sobre o papel do gestor de um Hedge Fund na selecção dos activos envolvidos como colateral, particularmente a posição desse Hedge Fund como vendedor (short) desses activos de crédito à habitação hipotecário de baixa qualidade (subprime mortgages).
Segundo a acusação da SEC, o Hedge Fund Paulson & Co pagou à Goldman Sachs para estruturar a transacção Abacus 2007-ACI, que permitisse ao Hedge Fund tomar posições vendedoras (short) em que beneficiaria quando houvesse falhas de pagamento (credit events), mas não informou os investidores da ACA que tomaram o risco do CDO.
Agora, os investidores penalizaram as açções do Goldman Sachs que perderam mais de 10% em bolsa num só dia.
Fonte: FT Alphaville
Quem compraria um carro usado deste banco?
Em resumo, GS ajudou um cliente a desfazer-se de activos de baixa qualidade para outro cliente que não não foi devidamente informado para saber o que estava a comprar?
O que há de novo nisto?
As assimetrias de informação favorecem sempre o vendedor, especialmente nas transações mais complexas da banca de investimento, nesta disintermediação aberrante, que se revela fora de control .
Por isso, é necessário voltar aos três R's, Re-capitalização para todos, Re-intermediação para os bancos e Re-orçamentação para os governos.
Um banco que merece o nome de banco comercial não deveria necessitar de alienar bons activos.
Agora que passou a banco, vamos ver se GS consegue prosperar a fazer crédito para balanço e não para ceder em transações cada vez mais complexas, a investidores cada vez mais mal informados.
Would you buy a used car from Goldman Sachs?
In summary, GS was an investment bank helped a client in getting rid of low quality assets to an unsuspecting investor/underwriter ACA? So, what else is new?
This just goes to show, "caveat emptor" also applies to financial assets, and the information assymetry always favours the seller. The more complex the transaction, the greater these risks.
The "new normal" in finance calls for going "back to basics", to the three R's, Recapitalization (deleveraging for everyone), Reintermediation (for banks), Rebudgeting (for Governments).
It seems that ACA as risk underwriter suffered from "information disadvantage" and fell into the trap of paying too much for low quality assets, which GS pushed to get rid of.
That's disintermediation gone crazy, out of control.
Why should a "bank", that deserves the name, need to sell good assets?
Now that GS has become a "bank", with balance sheet and all, let's see if they can prosper at the (re)intermediation business of "lending and holding".
Segundo a acusação da SEC, o Hedge Fund Paulson & Co pagou à Goldman Sachs para estruturar a transacção Abacus 2007-ACI, que permitisse ao Hedge Fund tomar posições vendedoras (short) em que beneficiaria quando houvesse falhas de pagamento (credit events), mas não informou os investidores da ACA que tomaram o risco do CDO.
Agora, os investidores penalizaram as açções do Goldman Sachs que perderam mais de 10% em bolsa num só dia.
Fonte: FT Alphaville
Quem compraria um carro usado deste banco?
Em resumo, GS ajudou um cliente a desfazer-se de activos de baixa qualidade para outro cliente que não não foi devidamente informado para saber o que estava a comprar?
O que há de novo nisto?
As assimetrias de informação favorecem sempre o vendedor, especialmente nas transações mais complexas da banca de investimento, nesta disintermediação aberrante, que se revela fora de control .
Por isso, é necessário voltar aos três R's, Re-capitalização para todos, Re-intermediação para os bancos e Re-orçamentação para os governos.
Um banco que merece o nome de banco comercial não deveria necessitar de alienar bons activos.
Agora que passou a banco, vamos ver se GS consegue prosperar a fazer crédito para balanço e não para ceder em transações cada vez mais complexas, a investidores cada vez mais mal informados.
Would you buy a used car from Goldman Sachs?
In summary, GS was an investment bank helped a client in getting rid of low quality assets to an unsuspecting investor/underwriter ACA? So, what else is new?
This just goes to show, "caveat emptor" also applies to financial assets, and the information assymetry always favours the seller. The more complex the transaction, the greater these risks.
The "new normal" in finance calls for going "back to basics", to the three R's, Recapitalization (deleveraging for everyone), Reintermediation (for banks), Rebudgeting (for Governments).
It seems that ACA as risk underwriter suffered from "information disadvantage" and fell into the trap of paying too much for low quality assets, which GS pushed to get rid of.
That's disintermediation gone crazy, out of control.
Why should a "bank", that deserves the name, need to sell good assets?
Now that GS has become a "bank", with balance sheet and all, let's see if they can prosper at the (re)intermediation business of "lending and holding".
Comments on Three Years to Save the EURO,
ResponderEliminarThe Economist, 15-April-2010
Three years to save the euro
Comment Apr 23rd 2010 7:27 GMT
Mica10: Stop the scaremongering. Banks don’t implode just because borrowers turn doubtful. That’s what bank capital is for.
And stop freaking out about the deficit and debt numbers. They will certainly get worse until the recession runs its course, AND until Governments and creditors stop “playing chicken” AND agree to share the sacrifices.
As Walter Wriston famously said back in the days before rampant disintermediation, “countries don’t go bankrupt”. When nearly all sovereign debt was on the balance sheets of the big international banks, everyone was forced to the table, to renegotiate the debt, to lengthen maturities, to hold interest costs down. The rediscounting of sovereign debt at the ECB, which risks becoming part of the problem, rather than a part of the solution, needs to be curtailed to normal liquidity management needs.
Quite rightly, the to-do list extends not just Governments, but also to banks and other creditors. True austerity measures, which are seen locally as political suicide, would always need time to work, and corresponding debt relief support from the creditor side. The Greeks didn´t get into hock on their own.
Putting into place a Eurozone debt restructuring mechanism may be necessary, but it will not be sufficient to right the financial imbalances within the EUR. It will be necessary to look at other issues of fiscal federacy, like the distribution of CAP farm subsidies and the portability of pensions and of pensioner health benefits. Currently, many northern pensioners retiring to the “Club Med” countries go to hospital at the expense of the local taxpayers. And pension haircuts are needed all around.
And a softer EURO would provide relief for the whole Eurozone.
A challenging to-do list indeed.
Following Latin American countries in the 1970's, we learned to focus on domestic credit growth as the single most important indicator and predictor of financial stress, devaluations, etc.
ResponderEliminarNowadays credit takes any number of forms, and keeps growing and growing.
Just listen to the credit offers that continue to be advertised even in overleveraged countries like Portugal.
In my early years in banking in New York, before Basel I, we learned to use the CAMEL concepts to evaluate bank creditworthiness (Capital, Asset qualtiy, Management, Earnings, Liqudity and funding).
Then the Cook ratio served to oversimplifiy bank analysis and to resume everything in a single solvency ratio.
Results? Reducing bank analysis and regulation to a single indicator, any indicator, is an invitation to gaming and abuse.
Gaming the Cook ratio and gaming the Maastricht criteria contributed significantly to the current debt crisis.