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Fitch’s decision to review its approach to rating structured notes is the result of fear of regulators and investors’ lawyers. Any changes the agency might be able to make are unlikely to help the market.
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Standard & Poor’s has got it in the neck for downgrading state-owned companies in the Gulf. This is unfair on the agency. Instead, the onus should be on the region’s governments to make known their intentions about government-related entity debt well in advance.
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The appointment of two Britons, Adair Turner and Paul Tucker, to chair key taskforces within the Financial Stability Board shows that the UK’s influence in setting the global regulatory agenda may not be as diminished as continental Europe had once thought.
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Opportunistic bids and unsuccessful offers threaten to become as much of a trend in subordinated liability management exercises as the triumphant raising of core tier one capital. But that’s no bad thing — any choice for investors is better than no choice at all.
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Cycles of boom and bust are a natural, ineradicable feature of the markets — just as the psyche of a credit analyst demands a villain on which to blame its troubles. When it comes to this financial crisis, Gary Jenkins knows who the real culprit is.
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Banks have started hiring again — leaving their truce over pay and bonuses in tatters. Firms are accusing each other of irresponsibility at odds with the need for them to work together on the pressing issue of reform, writes David Rothnie.
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The Financial Services Authority is determined to prevent a repeat of the liquidity crises that plagued UK banks last year but the British Bankers Association says that the regulator's proposals will put the screws on lending and hammer the economy. The BBA needs to take stability seriously — and if its members have a problem with their ability to lend, they should take that up with the Treasury, not the FSA.
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What a difference three months can make. Far from becoming an ingrained feature of capital markets as some had feared, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp’s bank debt guarantees have indeed lived up to their billing as “temporary”. It’s another sign of renewed optimism on Wall Street.
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The government’s stress tests on large US banks will paper over the cracks in the financial system rather than hasten its recovery. That appears to be the message of news emerging over the last week.
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Underwritings have been absent in the loan market over the last six months. New money lending has been dominated by clubbed and short-term term transactions. But K+S’s Eu1.4bn loan — for its $1.7bn takeover of Morton Salt — is different, the first proper underwrite seen in Europe this year. But while it is undoubtedly encouraging news, it’s too early to tell whether it heralds a return to the good old days in the syndicated loan market.