Merrill Lynch & Co will likely incur $5.4 billion of write-downs in the second quarter, mainly from its exposure to monolines, said an analyst at Lehman Brothers, who also saw higher quarterly losses at the world's largest brokerage.
Citigroup Inc shares fell to their lowest level in nearly a decade after a Goldman Sachs & Co analyst said investors should sell the largest U.S. bank's stock short as losses mount from troubled debt.
Barclays Plc may need to raise a further 9 billion pounds in capital, according to analysts at Citigroup, who also said the British bank could take further significant write-downs as credit market conditions continue to deteriorate.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Sanford C. Bernstein said they expect Merrill to post its fourth straight quarterly loss from its exposure to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and hedges.
J.P. Morgan Securities said it expects Merrill Lynch & Co Inc to post a loss in 2008, and substantially cut its second-quarter view for the Wall Street investment bank mainly due to ineffective hedging, slower client activity and likely writedowns from monoline exposures.
---
Notice a trend here? Banks are scrambling to make sure everyone knows the 'others' are doing much worse. Their own bank is of course "very capable of weathering the credit crisis, has a substantial capital base, is increasing its presence significantly in the emerging markets, has successfully diversified their portfolios further, bla bla bla." What a bunch of spoiled kids... Just put your head down in disgrace, fix your shop and hope the axes of regulations and lawsuits don't come crashing down on you.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Wise words from my hair dresser
Some time ago when I was getting a haircut I had a very interesting conversation with my hair dresser about choices of profession in life and how it was always affected by certain factors such as salary, status, etc. Very often people don't really choose their job only because of their interest in it. She asked me a question everyone should ask themselves; "Which job would you do if every job required the same number of working hours and they all provided the same salary?". Even though it's not realistic at all of course, (there are many more factors which influence a job position, such as responsibility, accountability, etc), it can still lead to very interesting outcomes. I asked some of my friends and quite a few have no idea, but what I found surprising is that most of them do not pick their current job! So maybe you should ask yourself that question and who knows you might end up doing just that in the future. I would appreciate it if you could post a comment with what your current profession is and then what your answer would be to the above question. Should be interesting!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Europe's own Banana Republic
Imagine a country where the Prime Minister controls all major media outlets and can personally have anything censored he dislikes. When the censorship gets criticized internally, he just simply removes the entire board of the largest media company in the country, as he is the owner.
Furthermore one of the largest companies in the country had gone bankrupt due to false accounting. However due to new laws passed by this Prime Minister which weakened protection against false accounting it was extremely difficult to retrieve any money from this fallen company, mainly to protect his own Media Empire from scrutiny regarding similar accounting mishaps.
No this is not Venezuela, Cuba or Iran...
In the past decades Britain and then Germany had the 'honour' of being handed the title of 'The Old Sick Man of Europe'. Since several years though Europe has a new patient, and a seriously ill one at that; Italy...
With one of the lowest economic growth rates in Europe, one of the highest deficits (and ever increasing), high unemployment rate, low education levels, etc etc, Italy is truly in bad shape. Having been drastically overtaken by Spain and is starting to feel the pressure from countries such as Portugal and even Greece who are growing at a relatively healthy pace something is clearly wrong in the Land of the Romans.
At first it seemed as though Italy was experiencing similar problems as France, Germany and Britain had in the past as the old, large economies in Europe which were more difficult to 'turn around' than for example a Dutch or an Austrian economy. However when in 2005 it became clear Italy was actually the only country in the EU to have fallen into a recession, the symptoms of the Old Sick Man of Europe were stronger than ever.
Now with the emerging markets, such as India and China, succesfully competing with 'old' industries in Europe the problems are getting worse by the day. While most European governments are stumbling over each other trying to get new, innovative companies up and running as fast as possible in order to create new sources of income and employment and compensate for the loss of traditional industrial work to the emerging markets, Italian companies and the government are focusing all their efforts on protecting their own national market.
According to the latest figures Italy's innovation performance is one of the lowest in Europe well behind countries such as Sweden, Finland, The Netherlands, and yes...also the UK, France and Germany, the former Old Sick Men of Europe. Another interesting comparison is the time required to open a new business in EU countries; in the Netherlands it take 1-2 days, in Denmark around 2 days, in Italy...2 months at least.
By obstructing new, innovative companies of entering the market while simultaneously relying on the traditional small- to medium-sized industrial companies, Italy has put itself in an extremely vulnerable position and is currently surviving mainly because of its relatively prominent position in the EU market. However, due to the inefficiency of many of the Italian national ‘champion corporations’ foreign companies are trying to buy up the companies for pocket change. The emphasis lies on “trying” as the Italian government is doing all it can to avoid foreigners from buying up the top layer of the Italian economy (Antonveneta, Alitalia, Banca di Roma, etc.)
If we look at the example of Alitalia we see a state controlled airline which has last reported a profit in 1998 and ever since has been losing a million Euros...a day. How can the company still be operating you might think; it’s quite simple, it is the airline of Italy and therefore the pride in the sky of the Italian people. At least, that’s what it is supposed to be, but by now the Italian tax payers have poured several billion Euros of tax money into the company and it’s still a huge mess. Alitalia currently has one of the oldest fleets in Europe and has a EU ‘domestic’ market share of under 3%.
Air France – KLM has come forward as the company to bail out Alitalia and buy the company for a symbolic amount of a million Euros from the Italian government. This would solve the problems of the company and finally remove the parasite from Italian wallets.
There was a problem though, the unions. The Alitalia unions managed to block every suggestion of necessary job-cuts by Air France – KLM. The unions proved to be so stubborn that the entire Exec team of Air France – KLM packed their bags last week and returned to Paris not wanting to talk to Alitalia anymore. They had had enough of the spoiled Italian unions who just did not want to understand the simple fact there was no way for the company to become profitable without restructuring the entire company. At the same time Berlusconi commended the unions on wanting to keep all the jobs within Alitalia and on top of that said he was convinced an Italian party would understand the unions much better than the French and was therefore trying to get an Italian buyer on board.
This is exactly the problem in Italy; the large companies are used to being protected by the government and are used to having huge sums of money poured into the company to keep it alive without having to deliver anything.
On the one hand Italy wants to be a big player in the EU while on the other they have one of the most protectionist economies in Europe. Unfortunately these systems do not go in hand very well. If the government can not get its act together in order to reform the economy into a truly liberal economy to be a significant player in the international markets, the country will bankrupt itself.
One of the main reasons many Italians support the government in protecting the national champions is simply because of national pride. What they might need to be told is that the percentage of total taxes in Italy paid by the average Italian taxpayer that go to supporting these ‘national champions’ is one of the highest in Europe if not the World at the moment.
Now let’s hope for Italy’s sake and for Berlusconi’s fate, Air France – KLM will return to the negotiations...
Furthermore one of the largest companies in the country had gone bankrupt due to false accounting. However due to new laws passed by this Prime Minister which weakened protection against false accounting it was extremely difficult to retrieve any money from this fallen company, mainly to protect his own Media Empire from scrutiny regarding similar accounting mishaps.
No this is not Venezuela, Cuba or Iran...
In the past decades Britain and then Germany had the 'honour' of being handed the title of 'The Old Sick Man of Europe'. Since several years though Europe has a new patient, and a seriously ill one at that; Italy...
With one of the lowest economic growth rates in Europe, one of the highest deficits (and ever increasing), high unemployment rate, low education levels, etc etc, Italy is truly in bad shape. Having been drastically overtaken by Spain and is starting to feel the pressure from countries such as Portugal and even Greece who are growing at a relatively healthy pace something is clearly wrong in the Land of the Romans.
At first it seemed as though Italy was experiencing similar problems as France, Germany and Britain had in the past as the old, large economies in Europe which were more difficult to 'turn around' than for example a Dutch or an Austrian economy. However when in 2005 it became clear Italy was actually the only country in the EU to have fallen into a recession, the symptoms of the Old Sick Man of Europe were stronger than ever.
Now with the emerging markets, such as India and China, succesfully competing with 'old' industries in Europe the problems are getting worse by the day. While most European governments are stumbling over each other trying to get new, innovative companies up and running as fast as possible in order to create new sources of income and employment and compensate for the loss of traditional industrial work to the emerging markets, Italian companies and the government are focusing all their efforts on protecting their own national market.
According to the latest figures Italy's innovation performance is one of the lowest in Europe well behind countries such as Sweden, Finland, The Netherlands, and yes...also the UK, France and Germany, the former Old Sick Men of Europe. Another interesting comparison is the time required to open a new business in EU countries; in the Netherlands it take 1-2 days, in Denmark around 2 days, in Italy...2 months at least.
By obstructing new, innovative companies of entering the market while simultaneously relying on the traditional small- to medium-sized industrial companies, Italy has put itself in an extremely vulnerable position and is currently surviving mainly because of its relatively prominent position in the EU market. However, due to the inefficiency of many of the Italian national ‘champion corporations’ foreign companies are trying to buy up the companies for pocket change. The emphasis lies on “trying” as the Italian government is doing all it can to avoid foreigners from buying up the top layer of the Italian economy (Antonveneta, Alitalia, Banca di Roma, etc.)
If we look at the example of Alitalia we see a state controlled airline which has last reported a profit in 1998 and ever since has been losing a million Euros...a day. How can the company still be operating you might think; it’s quite simple, it is the airline of Italy and therefore the pride in the sky of the Italian people. At least, that’s what it is supposed to be, but by now the Italian tax payers have poured several billion Euros of tax money into the company and it’s still a huge mess. Alitalia currently has one of the oldest fleets in Europe and has a EU ‘domestic’ market share of under 3%.
Air France – KLM has come forward as the company to bail out Alitalia and buy the company for a symbolic amount of a million Euros from the Italian government. This would solve the problems of the company and finally remove the parasite from Italian wallets.
There was a problem though, the unions. The Alitalia unions managed to block every suggestion of necessary job-cuts by Air France – KLM. The unions proved to be so stubborn that the entire Exec team of Air France – KLM packed their bags last week and returned to Paris not wanting to talk to Alitalia anymore. They had had enough of the spoiled Italian unions who just did not want to understand the simple fact there was no way for the company to become profitable without restructuring the entire company. At the same time Berlusconi commended the unions on wanting to keep all the jobs within Alitalia and on top of that said he was convinced an Italian party would understand the unions much better than the French and was therefore trying to get an Italian buyer on board.
This is exactly the problem in Italy; the large companies are used to being protected by the government and are used to having huge sums of money poured into the company to keep it alive without having to deliver anything.
On the one hand Italy wants to be a big player in the EU while on the other they have one of the most protectionist economies in Europe. Unfortunately these systems do not go in hand very well. If the government can not get its act together in order to reform the economy into a truly liberal economy to be a significant player in the international markets, the country will bankrupt itself.
One of the main reasons many Italians support the government in protecting the national champions is simply because of national pride. What they might need to be told is that the percentage of total taxes in Italy paid by the average Italian taxpayer that go to supporting these ‘national champions’ is one of the highest in Europe if not the World at the moment.
Now let’s hope for Italy’s sake and for Berlusconi’s fate, Air France – KLM will return to the negotiations...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
"We knew we were selling time bombs..."
What were they thinking? Selling mortgages to people with just enough income to cover the first five months of annual interest payments, repackaging those mortgages into bonds and selling them off to investors. Of course that bubble was going to burst some day! But why did it happen, and at such a large scale? Because of money, of course... As the people working in credit derivatives were rewarded according to the number of sold packages, they were encouraged to sell as much of the junk as possible.
I'm going to avoid getting too technical here, but the whole world was being fooled by the cartel of bulge bracket Investment Banks, who were constantly selling these rotten products to each other in order to keep the momentum going. And then it burst...
Why then, would tax payers need to bail out these banks and its bankers for messing it all up? Bernanke should have just let Bear Stearns file for bankruptcy. By selling their Madison Avenue office BS would probably be worth more than what JPM is paying now. And to start out with a clean slate, you first need to...well...clean your slate.
When the markets have a slight hickup the bankers are the first to let us all know the market will 'sort things out' and all will be just dandy. How about we test the market and let the market sort them out this time.
Bailing out these banks will not solve the problem. The banks should feel the pain to such an extent that their own survival will depend on their own internal culture. It's pretty obvious the bankers spoiled by the fat bonuses the past few years will just need time to find a new product they can sell easily in order to cover the costs of their summer home in the Hamptons. It is very strange that a banker theoretically has an unlimited bonus if all goes well, but if everything goes wrong the bank takes the losses and not the banker. Therefore the whole reward system should be revised drastically enforced by the e.g. the SEC (US) and the FSA (UK) in order to ensure all banks involved in this crisis adhere to the new system. If they think they can behave like spoiled little kids they apparently need some good parenting.
It is important to keep in mind I am talking about Investment Banks here who handle money of large institutions and millionaire private clients, and not regular Commercial Banks with 'average Joe's' money in retail accounts. The regulations covering I-Banks are nowhere near as stringent as those for Commercial Banks. Commercial Banks should be treated like public utilities in times of crises in order to safeguard people's money. I-Banks however, somehow have all the room to speculate with all the money in their coffers and still get saved by the Fed. Not really a fair situation if you ask me.
Oh by the way, anyone interested in a Bear Stearns employee card or a BS cafeteria card? You can have it for the price of one BS share..........
I'm going to avoid getting too technical here, but the whole world was being fooled by the cartel of bulge bracket Investment Banks, who were constantly selling these rotten products to each other in order to keep the momentum going. And then it burst...
Why then, would tax payers need to bail out these banks and its bankers for messing it all up? Bernanke should have just let Bear Stearns file for bankruptcy. By selling their Madison Avenue office BS would probably be worth more than what JPM is paying now. And to start out with a clean slate, you first need to...well...clean your slate.
When the markets have a slight hickup the bankers are the first to let us all know the market will 'sort things out' and all will be just dandy. How about we test the market and let the market sort them out this time.
Bailing out these banks will not solve the problem. The banks should feel the pain to such an extent that their own survival will depend on their own internal culture. It's pretty obvious the bankers spoiled by the fat bonuses the past few years will just need time to find a new product they can sell easily in order to cover the costs of their summer home in the Hamptons. It is very strange that a banker theoretically has an unlimited bonus if all goes well, but if everything goes wrong the bank takes the losses and not the banker. Therefore the whole reward system should be revised drastically enforced by the e.g. the SEC (US) and the FSA (UK) in order to ensure all banks involved in this crisis adhere to the new system. If they think they can behave like spoiled little kids they apparently need some good parenting.
It is important to keep in mind I am talking about Investment Banks here who handle money of large institutions and millionaire private clients, and not regular Commercial Banks with 'average Joe's' money in retail accounts. The regulations covering I-Banks are nowhere near as stringent as those for Commercial Banks. Commercial Banks should be treated like public utilities in times of crises in order to safeguard people's money. I-Banks however, somehow have all the room to speculate with all the money in their coffers and still get saved by the Fed. Not really a fair situation if you ask me.
Oh by the way, anyone interested in a Bear Stearns employee card or a BS cafeteria card? You can have it for the price of one BS share..........
Sunday, September 23, 2007
5 C's
Sorry, I've been so busy I haven't had time to write a new post for my blog, but at last here it is!
In this post I'm going to tell you something about the 5 C's of Singapore. To reach the highest echelons of the Singaporean societal ladder you need to be high on the ranking of the 5 C's. So what are these 5 C's? Some time ago this term started as a joke about the wide-spread materialism in Singapore, but has now become an established term in Singlish (Singapore-English). The 5 C's are the following: Cash, Car, Condo, Credit Card and Country Club. People in Singapore are basically rated according to these C's;
Cash: is self-explanatory, the more you have the higher on the food chain you are.
Car: is an 'ueber' status symbol here in Singapore as cars are, relative to other countries, extremely expensive. The base tax on a car is around 191%, excluding road tax and something called the Certificate of Ownership, which basically allows you to own and drive a car which is easily some double digit percentage of the value of your car. So you want, let's say a nice Volvo XC 90 SUV? Then you better be prepared to shell out $250,000 and that's without the sunroof option ;) This explains the strong connection of the car you drive in with the food chain ranking.
Condo: 84% of Singaporeans live in so called HDBs (Housing Development Board), which basically is government built and subsidized housing. Within HDBs you have a food-chain system as well basically linked to location. Some HDBs near the city centre are really pretty luxurious while others near the airport are much less attractive to live in and therefore are meant for the lower echelons of society. Condos however are where the affluent locals and expats live in. Basically they're pretty much hotels without the room service. So if you can afford a condo, you are doing very well. If however, you can afford a freestanding house with a garden, you are so much the shit you don't even have to look at your 5 C's anymore so the condo doesn't count for you anymore.
Credit Card: To apply for a Credit Card here in Singapore you need an income of at least $30,000 annually. However, there is a ranking within the CCs as well, such as Platinum, Elite, Gold, the whole deal. The level of your card therefore also plays a great role. It is of such importance that most banks here now even offer platinum cards for a much higher annual fee even if you don't really have enough on your account to be eligable. And people actually pay those fees in order to get a platinum....
Country Club: As there is very little empty open land in Singapore country clubs are very rare. The ones that do exist are therefore extremely exclusive. Some clubs even have waiting lists of several years. What helps is that you can usually sign up your 5 year old kid for a golf membership which kicks in when he turns 18/21 just to make sure he has a tee-off time on his birthday of course. Oh and don't forget you'll have to start paying a 'holding' fee for the years he has to wait. This is of course only available to people who are already members of course and already pay several tens of thousands of dollars a year to have the sticker on their windshield of their cars. (here in Singapore you need a sticker on the windshield of your car so the guard at the club can see you are a member, otherwise they will deny you entry). Therefore the more stickers you have on your windshield the higher on the food-chain you are.
So much for the latest lesson on Singaporean society!
In this post I'm going to tell you something about the 5 C's of Singapore. To reach the highest echelons of the Singaporean societal ladder you need to be high on the ranking of the 5 C's. So what are these 5 C's? Some time ago this term started as a joke about the wide-spread materialism in Singapore, but has now become an established term in Singlish (Singapore-English). The 5 C's are the following: Cash, Car, Condo, Credit Card and Country Club. People in Singapore are basically rated according to these C's;
Cash: is self-explanatory, the more you have the higher on the food chain you are.
Car: is an 'ueber' status symbol here in Singapore as cars are, relative to other countries, extremely expensive. The base tax on a car is around 191%, excluding road tax and something called the Certificate of Ownership, which basically allows you to own and drive a car which is easily some double digit percentage of the value of your car. So you want, let's say a nice Volvo XC 90 SUV? Then you better be prepared to shell out $250,000 and that's without the sunroof option ;) This explains the strong connection of the car you drive in with the food chain ranking.
Condo: 84% of Singaporeans live in so called HDBs (Housing Development Board), which basically is government built and subsidized housing. Within HDBs you have a food-chain system as well basically linked to location. Some HDBs near the city centre are really pretty luxurious while others near the airport are much less attractive to live in and therefore are meant for the lower echelons of society. Condos however are where the affluent locals and expats live in. Basically they're pretty much hotels without the room service. So if you can afford a condo, you are doing very well. If however, you can afford a freestanding house with a garden, you are so much the shit you don't even have to look at your 5 C's anymore so the condo doesn't count for you anymore.
Credit Card: To apply for a Credit Card here in Singapore you need an income of at least $30,000 annually. However, there is a ranking within the CCs as well, such as Platinum, Elite, Gold, the whole deal. The level of your card therefore also plays a great role. It is of such importance that most banks here now even offer platinum cards for a much higher annual fee even if you don't really have enough on your account to be eligable. And people actually pay those fees in order to get a platinum....
Country Club: As there is very little empty open land in Singapore country clubs are very rare. The ones that do exist are therefore extremely exclusive. Some clubs even have waiting lists of several years. What helps is that you can usually sign up your 5 year old kid for a golf membership which kicks in when he turns 18/21 just to make sure he has a tee-off time on his birthday of course. Oh and don't forget you'll have to start paying a 'holding' fee for the years he has to wait. This is of course only available to people who are already members of course and already pay several tens of thousands of dollars a year to have the sticker on their windshield of their cars. (here in Singapore you need a sticker on the windshield of your car so the guard at the club can see you are a member, otherwise they will deny you entry). Therefore the more stickers you have on your windshield the higher on the food-chain you are.
So much for the latest lesson on Singaporean society!
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Business Asian Style
Yesterday I decided I wanted to have a suit dry-cleaned before my working week starts on Monday. What I didn't know is that for some reason dry-cleaning here still takes about a week to get done. Pretty much everything else from ordering a cab by phone, having your cable installed to even having an MRI scan happens at the speed of light, but for some reason the mysterious science of dry-cleaning takes more time for the Singaporeans than to build a new part of town (actually that might be one of the things they really do fastest here). The problem was however, I simply did not have that time. The lady of the dry-cleaners told me it would be ready on Monday or Tuesday and they'd give me a call. I asked if there was no way they could get it done any faster, she pointed to racks of clothes behind her and said they were swamped and they really couldn't get it done on time. Then my Asian blood kicked in; "How much does the dry-cleaning cost?" "S$ 13, sir." "Alright fine, I'll give you S$ 20 if you can make sure you can get it done before the weekend." She then took my suit pushed a bunch of clothes aside on the rack so mine was first in line, turned back around with a smile on her face and said "Ok sir no problem, you pick up tomorrow at 5pm?" HAHA isn't that great! In Holland people would probably depict this as a direct bribe, but Asians see it as what the market is prepared to pay for an 'express service' even though at first this doesn't even appear to be an option. I prefer the latter interpretation ;) So people, I'm off to pick up my dry-cleaned and nicely pressed suit now! Bye!
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