Credit Downturn Hits U.S. Malls

Credit Downturn Hits U.S. Malls

Centro Properties' Woes Underscore the State Of Commercial Market

By KEMBA J. DUNHAM and JENNIFER S. FORSYTH

The credit crunch triggered by the downturn in the housing market is creating problems in commercial real estate, driving down prices of office buildings, shopping malls and apartment complexes, and leaving some owners scrambling for cash.

One victim is Centro Properties Group, the fifth-largest owner of shopping centers in the U.S. The Australian real-estate company saw its share price fall by 90% in two days last week as it struggled to refinance short-term debt it took on to fund its $6.2 billion acquisition of New Plan Excel, one of the biggest owners of strip malls in the U.S.

Centro had planned to pay off the short-term loans by selling long-term debt via the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, but the lack of buyers forced it to get a two-month extension from its creditors. Commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, are pools of loans that are sliced up and sold to investors as bonds.

Residential mortgages are packaged and resold much the same way, but so far the CMBS market hasn't had any significant problem with defaults.

In another high-profile case, the clock is ticking for Harry Macklowe, the New York developer, who is struggling to raise financing by February to replace $7.1 billion in short-term money he borrowed to finance his heavily leveraged acquisition of seven Manhattan office buildings this year.

The predicament facing Centro, Mr. Macklowe and numerous others underscores the state of the once-unflappable commercial real-estate market. For the past few months, the sector has been in a state of near-paralysis, as financing has nearly dried up. The number of major properties sold is down by half, and many worry that the market will continue to deteriorate as property sales remain slow, prices continue to drop and deals keep falling apart.

"Where we're really in a fog is on the capital markets side," said Michael Giliberto, a managing director of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., on a conference call last week about the state of the commercial real-estate market.

The CMBS market was the engine that drove the commercial real-estate boom. Over the past few years, the issuance of CMBS allowed banks to get rid of the risk on their books, lend with cheaper rates and looser terms and that made it easy for private-equity firms to do huge real-estate deals.

Between 2002 and 2007, CMBS issuance rose to an estimated $225 billion from $52 billion, according to Commercial Mortgage Alert, a trade publication that compiles its own statistics.

Real-estate investors aren't the only ones feeling the pain. Many big banks issued short-term loans to buyers and planned to sell them off later, much the way they do with loans made to private-equity buyout shops. But the banks have gotten stuck with an estimated $65 billion in fixed- and floating-rate loans on their books, according to J.P. Morgan. Some of the largest issuers have been Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Credit Suisse Group and Wachovia Corp.

Lehman has said that about half of the $79 billion in mortgage debt it was holding at year-end is CMBS-related. Wachovia and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Prices, however, haven't appeared to fall, though much like residential real estate, there is often a period where buyers stop buying but sellers refuse to lower prices.

There is "cognitive dissonance" between buyers and sellers, says Dennis Russo, a real-estate attorney for Herrick Feinstein. "There's a period of time in which the seller cannot psychologically move his price down. They haven't accepted what's happening in the market."

According to Real Capital Analytics, sales of significant office properties plummeted to $7 billion in November, a 55% drop compared with November 2006. So few deals are getting done that many market experts say they don't know how to put a value on many buildings right now -- but almost everyone is in agreement that the valuations are dropping.

Often, deals aren't done because financing either isn't available or is so expensive that buyers are insisting on price reductions that sellers won't accept.

For example, Ackerman & Co., a brokerage, just pulled a suburban Atlanta office building off the market after bids came in below estimates. Developer Michael Reschke has so far been unable to get financing for a J.W. Marriott planned down the street from the Chicago Board of Trade, despite his willingness to put more cash into the deal than originally planned.

The commercial real-estate market was still soaring in early 2007, long past the peak of the residential real estate market. But a combination of frenzied deal making, high prices and credit worries combined to sink the sector.

First, private-equity firm Blackstone Group LP made its record-breaking $23 billion purchase of Sam Zell's Equity Office Property Trust, the nation's biggest owner of office buildings. Then it turned around and sold off many of the properties at even higher prices. The frenzied deal-making surrounding the EOP portfolio came to symbolize frothy valuations, which triggered a backlash in the lending markets.

In April, Moody's Investors Service said lenders' underwriting standards had become too lax during the run up in prices. The warning scared investors and prompted bankers to raise interest rates and required borrowers to put in more of their own money into deals.

The subprime-mortgage downturn hit last summer, prompting fears that the problems plaguing the residential market would spillover to the commercial side. Banks were caught holding debt on their books, making them less willing to lend.

Centro Property got caught in the crunch. Its billion-dollar acquisition of New Plan Excel, a U.S. shopping center real-estate investment trust, came in February -- a moment many experts believe was the height of the commercial market.

Now its lenders, primarily Australian banks, are pressuring Centro to sell assets before they will consider refinancing.

"Certainly the private-equity players played that game for a time, and they could have been caught in a similar situation but they were very quick to turn around and sell their assets," said Paul Adornato, a real-estate analyst with BMO Capital Markets Corp. Centro's chief executive, Andrew Scott, didn't return calls for comment.

Credit was so plentiful when Mr. Macklowe purchased his Manhattan office buildings from Blackstone, he only needed to put in $50 million of equity to secure $7.1 billion in debt, which included a bridge loan and the senior mortgage, people familiar with the deal say.

He is now looking for an equity partner, people said. A spokesman for Mr. Macklowe declined to comment.

tag: Credit Crunch, CMBS, ABS

Che facciamo?

Il popolo delle libertà vuole un partito unico? Certo: qualunque sia il partito che si vota al momento, si vuole votare per il leader che possa costruire una rappresentanza unitaria del centrodestra, chiunque sia tale leader .
Leggere DestraLab per credere. A destra non si vuole la rivoluzione e non sono certo s'inseguano "socialità" d'altri tempi : si vuole soprattutto un ampio scudo che impedisca ai politici collettivisti, di destra e sinistra, d'impicciarsi degli affari e delle vite di famiglie ed individui e si vuole un leader che incarni e difenda soprattutto questo.

clipped from www.destralab.it

Gli elettori nei sondaggi rispondono sbrigativamente che intendono votare “per Berlusconi”… Ma i sondaggi suggeriscono che vincerà la competizione chi saprà proporre un’immagine il più possibile unitaria…

Quello che salta all’occhio

mi sembra sia la risposta alla domanda è meglio che i partiti si sciolgano per formare un solo, vero e proprio partito unico, dove si nota che il 72% degli elettori dell’Udc e il 62% di quelli di An rispondono in modo affermativo. Sembra che gli elettori del centrodestra ambiscono da tempo ad un rinnovamento nel quadro politico e nella loro coalizione in particolare. Ciò che i votanti per il centrodestra paiono volere soprattutto è la creazione di forze ampie, unitarie e la conseguente semplificazione del quadro politico. A quanto pare Casini e Fini potrebbero dedicare alla cosa un surplus di riflession

HT: DestraLab
ps: mi associo alla dedica e alla “creatura“.

Accept Israel as the Jewish state? | Jerusalem Post

Accept Israel as the Jewish state? | Jerusalem Post: "Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Department: 'The Palestinians will never acknowledge Israel's Jewish identity. … There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined.'
Erekat's generalization is both curious and revealing. Not only do 56 states and the PLO belong to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, but most of them, including the PLO, make the sharia (Islamic law) their main or only source of legislation. Saudi Arabia even requires that every subject be a Muslim. Further, the religious-national nexus extends well beyond Muslim countries. Argentinean law, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe points out, 'mandates government support for the Roman Catholic faith. Queen Elizabeth II is the supreme governor of the Church of England. In the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the constitution proclaims Buddhism the nation's 'spiritual heritage.' … 'The prevailing religion in Greece,' declares Section II of the Greek Constitution, 'is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ'.' SO, WHY the mock-principled refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state? Perhaps because the PLO still intends to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state."

Ringraziamenti scoppiettanti

Da Hurricane_53:

"I mortai palestinesi sono entrati in azione colpendo a ripetizione le case del kibbutz. Almeno otto ordigni sono esplosi nel villaggio, altrettanti sono caduti nei campi vicini. Intanto, dopo sei mesi e' stato riaperto il valico di Rafah.(Il lancio di mortai è stato il ringraziamento!) Oggi 200 palestinesi hanno attraversato la frontiera."

Ringraziamo il cielo che certa stampa italiana non abbia neppure riportato la notizia, altrimenti sarebbe suonata come "Israele sfrutta 200 lavoratori, riapre un varco ed esplodono ordigni" o qualcosa di altrettanto lucido ed oggettivo.
Ringraziamo anche la mancata difesa dell'esercito israeliano: se avesse reagito colpendo i siti di lancio, magari uccidendo gli artificieri, al titolo precedente si sarebbe sostituito un "Israele bombarda Gaza, strage di civili"

Pure il nome...

Sono felicissimo che anche il popolo della libertà, nel suo piccolo, si mobiliti. Le manifestazioni di vitalità del popolo di centrodestra mi rendono soltanto felice.
Il Post scriptum, invece, mi lascia un pochino d'amaro in bocca: la parola "partito" sarà demodé, ma "popolo" ha davvero un brutto sapore.


HT:KrilliX

Florida Weighs Steps Needed To Lift Freeze on State Fund - WSJ.com

Florida Weighs Steps Needed To Lift Freeze on State Fund - WSJ.com

A day after Florida froze withdrawals from its government investment fund, an advisory committee to the state board met with some of the fund's investors late Friday to determine how it can lift the moratorium without sparking a run on the $15 billion fund.

The two-hour meeting ended without reaching a resolution as to how to re-open the fund. Many options were considered, even the liquidation of the fund, though it isn't clear how seriously that was taken. No agreement was reached, according to a spokesman for Florida's State Board of Administration.

Florida's State Board imposed the freeze on withdrawals from its Local Government Investment Pool Thursday after the fund's investors, nervous local governments and school districts, yanked $10 billion out over two weeks on concerns that money was invested in risky mortgage-related securities.

"We knew there was trouble," said Sharon Bock, clerk and comptroller for Palm Beach County, who had $60 million in the investment pool in September but withdrew the last of it Wednesday. "We saw that several investments were backed by mortgage-backed securities."

Florida isn't the only fund to be hit. Standard & Poor's in October put a fund in King County, Wash., on watch for downgrade because of the $4.1 billion county fund's investments in three so-called structured investment vehicles, or SIVs. These are commonly bank affiliates that raise money by selling short-term debt and using it to buy higher-yielding long-term securities.

In Montana, the Board of Investments has been hit with $247 million in withdrawals this week from a $2.5 billion fund called the Short Term Investment Pool following reports about Florida's problems.

The spread of subprime's influence into the state-run world shows the mortgage crisis is hitting investors once thought to be removed from the damage. While these funds aren't believed to have bought any of the riskiest paper scooped up by hedge funds and banks, they have nonetheless suffered collateral damage as even the highest-rated mortgage-backed securities have become illiquid, putting short-term funds in a bind they never saw coming. "People believed they were doing things prudently, but some tried to get a little more yield and thought why not?" Richard Larkin, a municipal bond expert at JB Hanauer & Co. said. "Everyone believed A1-rated commercial paper was safe. They're realizing that isn't enough."

The Florida investment pool, one of around 100 or so nationwide, is like a money-market fund that was supposed to provide a safe, liquid vehicle for investors to park cash used temporarily. The money in the funds is generally used for payroll and other government regular operations. Moody's Investors Service has begun surveying all state investment pools to see whether they have exposure to these instruments and if there have been any withdrawals similar to Florida, according to Bob Kurtter, managing director in public finance at the rating agency. "The financial markets are complex and rapidly developing," he said. "Sometimes new instruments are developed that fall within the bounds of existing investment guidelines, but may pose risks that weren't anticipated at the time."

Moody's knows of problems in Florida and similar but smaller issues in Montana. The rating agency has also been talking with a county on the East Coast that recently took a loss from an investment its cash pool made in a SIV, Mr. Kurtter said. The information is confidential, he added. "We have been reassured that problem is under control and manageable," he said. "They are seeking some recourse against whoever sold it to them.

As word spread of Florida's mass withdrawals and then the suspension, other investment pools around the country took steps to reassure their investors.

"The purpose of this letter is to assure you that Georgia Fund 1 is not invested in, nor has ever been invested in, the types of subprime-backed investments that are generating such losses," W. Daniel Ebersole, director of Georgia's Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services, wrote to investors on Wednesday.

Mr. Ebersole said he drafted the letter after a "couple of enquiries" from Georgia investors who had been spooked after hearing about the Florida news.

Florida's predicament is the latest example of investors stretching in search of higher yields without realizing the full risks they were taking on, public finance experts said

One high-profile example of this was Orange County, Calif., in 1994, which, like Florida, ran a short-term investment pool for local governments and school boards in the area.

After Orange County went bankrupt, many states and counties tightened guidelines to ensure investments were short term and had top ratings from a leading agency, Mr. Larkin said.

But investment vehicles, like SIVs, were then developed that had top ratings, but had riskier underlying assets. That allowed state and county investment pools to stay within their stricter guidelines, but invest in higher yielding assets, Mr. Larkin and others say.

"There's a pattern here," he added. "This seems to happen every five to ten years."

Moody's May Cut Ratings on $105 Billion of SIVs as Values Sink

BN 00:32 Moody's May Cut Ratings on $105 Billion of SIVs as Values Sink


By Shannon D. Harrington
Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Moody's Investors Service is preparing the biggest credit rating cuts since subprime mortgages contaminated the bond market, foreshadowing losses for investments that pay Florida teachers and money market funds.
Moody's may lower ratings on $105 billion of debt sold by structured investment vehicles after the net asset values of 20 SIVs sponsored by banks including New York-based Citigroup Inc.
and ING Groep NV declined to 55 percent from 71 percent a month ago, Moody's said in a statement Nov. 30. The assets were valued at 102 percent in June.
``The assets that SIVs hold are continuing to decline in value,'' said Ira Jersey, an interest-rate strategist in New York at Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-biggest bank by assets. ``As they do that it's creating more problems for the holders.''
School districts, towns and cities across Florida were denied access to their money after the State Board of Administration halted withdrawals from the Local Government Investment Pool on Nov. 29 to stem a run on the fund, which had $2 billion in SIVs and other debt tainted by the subprime collapse, state records show.
Legg Mason Inc., based in Baltimore, said two money market funds run by its Western Asset Management Co. unit had almost 1 percent of their assets in an SIV sponsored by Amsterdam-based ING, the biggest Dutch financial-services company.

Super-SIV Fund

Downgrades would make it more difficult for SIVs, companies that use short-term debt to invest in higher-yielding assets, to obtain financing. Three of the funds defaulted in the past four
months. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is working with Citigroup, New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina, to form an $80 billion fund to help bail them out.
Moody's cut the ratings $14 billion of SIV debt last week, mostly capital notes that rank below commercial paper and medium-term notes. The New York-based company also placed $105
billion on review for a downgrade and confirmed the rankings on $11 billion.
Citigroup SIVs with $64.9 billion of debt were reduced or put on review. Bank of Montreal's $19 billion SIV had its ratings cut or placed on review. Some of the evaluations will be
completed within a week, Moody's said.

`Material Declines'


``In recent weeks, Moody's has observed material declines in market value across most asset classes in SIV portfolios,'' the ratings company said in the statement.
Values on Citigroup's six SIVs under scrutiny fell as low as 56 percent, Moody's said. Orion Finance Corp., managed by Eiger Capital Corp., has a net asset value of 54 percent, down
from 61 percent on Sept. 5. Eiger is sponsored by ING.
SIVs had about $320 billion of assets as recently as October, according to the ratings companies. Investors are concerned that the funds will sell holdings at fire-sale prices
if they are forced to liquidate, further roiling credit markets that seized up in July and August.
The net asset value represents the amount that would be left over for investors if a SIV was forced to sell holdings and repay debt. SIV assets on average are 38 percent financial institution debt, 16 percent asset-backed securities and 12 percent collateralized debt obligations, Moody's said.
``We need to see the purging process result in a cleaning up of the bad debt,'' said Scott MacDonald, head of research at Aladdin Capital Management LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, which has $21.5 billion in assets. ``This is a painful, but necessary healing process.''

Florida Rejection

The SIV debt Moody's placed on review includes the top-ranked notes held by money market funds and local government investment pools.
A new advisory panel of Florida school and local government officials said on Nov. 30 they won't accept a return of less than 100 percent of their investment from the Local Government Investment Pool. The agency that runs the fund had proposed surveying participants to see if they would accept as little as 90 cents on the dollar of their deposits in order to access their money this month.
The two money funds run by Legg Mason owned debt of Orion. Moody's last week cut Orion's top P1 commercial paper rating to ``Not Prime,'' and its AAA medium-term note program was slashed to Baa3, the lowest investment grade. Commercial paper is due in 270 days or less.
Citigroup, the largest U.S. bank by assets, provided $7.6 billion of emergency financing to its SIVs last month. London- based HSBC Holdings Plc said last week it will take on $45 billion of assets from the two SIVs it manages. SIVs set up by Dusseldorf-based lender IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG and London-based Cheyne Capital Management Ltd. defaulted in October.

--With reporting by Pierre Paulden and Bryan Keogh in New York and Christopher Condon and Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam in Boston.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Abu Dhabi non è come i giapponesi e gli hedgies

Dall' OpinionJournal: "Sovereign Impunity There's a difference between Abu Dhabi now and Japan in the 1980s.

They've been around for decades, but their recent growth has been explosive. They often operate outside any regulatory framework, while their investments are often opaque and their intentions have been questioned by governments around the world. Their assets are now measured in trillions of dollars, up from the 'mere' billions they controlled as recently as 1990.
But wait--are these 'sovereign wealth funds,' or hedge funds? Actually, the description applies to both. And in both cases, it is easy to overstate the dangers in their recent growth. That said, there are important differences between the private pools of capital known as hedge funds and the public pools that have come to be called sovereign wealth funds."

[...]

Sovereign wealth funds are not voluntary aggregations of capital earned by risk taking. They represent the concentration of wealth that results from government, rather than private, ownership of natural resources, especially oil. It's no accident the Abu Dhabi fund was formed in the first petrodollar era in the 1970s, and that it is booming again amid the current sequel. These funds owe much of their current size from bad U.S. monetary policy. We were nearly as "dependent on foreign oil" in the 1980s and 1990s as we are today. But with a responsible Federal Reserve and strong dollar, there was no boom in petrodollars.

[...]

Only in this decade, amid the Fed's dollar abdication, have we again seen the boom in commodity prices that is enriching Russia, the Arab kingdoms, Venezuela (see below) and other dubious corners of the globe. Our own monetary mistakes have made these funds richer than they would be under normal market conditions. The response should not be to restrict their investment, but to start protecting the value of the dollar so that the price of oil falls back down to where it reflects supply and demand, not a cheapening U.S. currency.

Then these funds will become less important as a source of global capital. In the meantime, "sovereign" money that invests in America should be welcome as long as it plays by American rules and doesn't threaten our national security.

Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism

By HARRIET RUBIN

One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com’s best-seller list. (“Winning,” by John F. Welch Jr., at a breezy 384 pages, is No. 1,431.)

The book is “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand’s glorification of the right of individuals to live entirely for their own interest.

For years, Rand’s message was attacked by intellectuals whom her circle labeled “do-gooders,” who argued that individuals should also work in the service of others. Her book was dismissed as an homage to greed. Gore Vidal described its philosophy as “nearly perfect in its immorality.”

But the book attracted a coterie of fans, some of them top corporate executives, who dared not speak of its impact except in private. When they read the book, often as college students, they now say, it gave form and substance to their inchoate thoughts, showing there is no conflict between private ambition and public benefit.

“I know from talking to a lot of Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s that ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has had a significant effect on their business decisions, even if they don’t agree with all of Ayn Rand’s ideas,” said John A. Allison, the chief executive of BB&T, one of the largest banks in the United States.

“It offers something other books don’t: the principles that apply to business and to life in general. I would call it complete,” he said.

One of Rand’s most famous devotees is Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose memoir, “The Age of Turbulence,” will be officially released Monday.

Mr. Greenspan met Rand when he was 25 and working as an economic forecaster. She was already renowned as the author of “The Fountainhead,” a novel about an architect true to his principles. Mr. Greenspan had married a member of Rand’s inner circle, known as the Collective, that met every Saturday night in her New York apartment. Rand did not pay much attention to Mr. Greenspan until he began praising drafts of “Atlas,” which she read aloud to her disciples, according to Jeff Britting, the archivist of Ayn Rand’s papers. He was attracted, Mr. Britting said, to “her moral defense of capitalism.”

Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, “King of Kings.”

He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter. She sold several screenplays and intermittently wrote novels that were commercial failures, until 1943, when fans of “The Fountainhead” began a word-of-mouth campaign that helped sales immensely.

Shortly after “Atlas Shrugged” was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic’s comment that “the book was written out of hate.” Mr. Greenspan wrote: “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.”

Rand’s magazine, The Objectivist, later published several essays by Mr. Greenspan, including one on the gold standard in 1966.

Rand called “Atlas” a mystery, “not about the murder of man’s body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit.” It begins in a time of recession. To save the economy, the hero, John Galt, calls for a strike against government interference. Factories, farms and shops shut down. Riots break out as food becomes scarce.

Rand said she “set out to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them” and to portray “what happens to a world without them.”

The book was released to terrible reviews. Critics faulted its length, its philosophy and its literary ambitions. Both conservatives and liberals were unstinting in disparaging the book; the right saw promotion of godlessness, and the left saw a message of “greed is good.” Rand is said to have cried every day as the reviews came out.

Rand had a reputation for living for her own interest. She is said to have seduced her most serious reader, Nathaniel Branden, when he was 24 or 25 and she was at least 50. Each was married to someone else. In fact, Mr. Britting confirmed, they called their spouses to a meeting at which the pair announced their intention to make the mentor-protégé relationship a sexual one.

“She wasn’t a nice person, ” said Darla Moore, vice president of the private investment firm Rainwater Inc. “But what a gift she’s given us.”

Ms. Moore, a benefactor of the University of South Carolina, spoke of her debt to Rand in 1998, when the business school at the university was named in Ms. Moore’s honor. “As a woman and a Southerner,” she said, “I thrived on Rand’s message that only quality work counted, not who you are.”

Rand’s idea of “the virtue of selfishness,” Ms. Moore said, “is a harsh phrase for the Buddhist idea that you have to take care of yourself.”

Some business leaders might be unsettled by the idea that the only thing members of the leadership class have in common is their success. James M. Kilts, who led turnarounds at Gillette, Nabisco and Kraft, said he encountered “Atlas” at “a time in college life when everybody was a nihilist, anti-establishment, and a collectivist.” He found her writing reassuring because it made success seem rational.

“Rand believed that there is right and wrong,” he said, “that excellence should be your goal.”

John P. Stack is one business executive who has taken Rand’s ideas to heart. He was chief executive of Springfield Remanufacturing Company, a retooler of tractor engines in Springfield, Mo., when its parent company, International Harvester, divested itself of the firm in the recession of 1982, the year Rand died.

Having lost his sole customer in a struggling Rust Belt city, Mr. Stack says, he took action like a hero out of “Atlas.” He created an “open book” company in which employees were transparently working in their own interest.

Mr. Stack says that he assigned every job a bottom line value and that every salary, including his own, was posted on a company ticker daily. Workplaces, he said, are notoriously undemocratic, emotionally charged and political.

Mr. Stack says his free market replaced all that with rational behavior. A machinist knew exactly what his working hour contributed to the bottom line, and therefore the cost of slacking off. This, Mr. Stack said, was a manifestation of the philosophy of objectivism in “Atlas”: people guided by reason and self-interest.

“There is something in your inner self that Rand draws out,” Mr. Stack said. “You want to be a hero, you want to be right, but by the same token you have to question yourself, though you must not listen to interference thrown at you by the distracters. The lawyers told me not to open the books and share equity.” He said he defied them. “ ‘Atlas’ helped me pursue this idiot dream that became SRC.”

Mr. Stack said he was 19 and working in a factory when a manager gave him a copy of the book. “It’s the best business book I ever read,” he said. “I didn’t do well in school because I was a big dreamer. To get something that tells you to take your dreams seriously, that’s an eye opener.”

Mr. Stack said he gave a copy to his son, Tim Stack, 25, who was so inspired that he went to work for a railroad, just like the novel’s heroine, Dagny Taggart.

Every year, 400,000 copies of Rand’s novels are offered free to Advanced Placement high school programs. They are paid for by the Ayn Rand Institute, whose director, Yaron Brook, said the mission was “to keep Rand alive.”

Last year, bookstores sold 150,000 copies of the book. It continues to hold appeal, even to a younger generation. Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who was born in 1958, and John P. Mackey, the chief executive of Whole Foods, who was 3 when the book was published, have said they consider Rand crucial to their success.

The book’s hero, John Galt, also continues to live on. The subcontractor hired to demolish the former Deutsche Bank building, which was damaged when the World Trade Center towers fell, was the John Galt Corporation. It was removed from the job last month after a fire at the building killed two firefighters.

In Chicago, there is John Galt Solutions, a producer of software for supply chain companies like Tastykake. The founder and chief executive of the company, Annemarie Omrod, said she considered the character an inspiration.

“We were reading the book,” she said, when she and Kai Trepte were thinking of starting the company. “For us, the book symbolized the importance of growing yourself and bettering yourself without hindering other people. John Galt took all the great minds and started a new society.

“Some of our customers don’t know the name, though after they meet us, they want to read the book,” she went on. “Our sales reps have a problem, however. New clients usually ask: ‘Hey, where is John Galt? How come I’m not important enough to rate a visit from John Galt?’ ”

State Street Is Exposed to Conduit-Backed Assets

State Street Is Exposed to Conduit-Backed Assets

Vehicles Have Caused Headaches in Europe; Bond Fund Loses Value

By JENNIFER LEVITZ and TOM LAURICELLA

Shares of State Street Corp. fell on concerns it could face liabilities from four off-balance sheet "conduit" entities that it backs, and reports that funds it manages have taken sharp losses in the credit-market turmoil.

The 4.3% share-price drop came despite reassurances from credit-ratings firm Standard & Poor's that the Boston-based company's debt ratings weren't affected by its links to the conduits, which issue commercial paper to buy other types of debt, and are offered to investors as a way of earning attractive short-term yields. Several European banks have been hit in recent weeks by exposure to conduits that held securities backed by residential U.S. mortgages.

This month, State Street disclosed in filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it provides lines of credit and other backup financing totaling $28.81 billion to four conduits. The credit lines could be tapped if the funds were unable to issue commercial paper, a type of short-term IOU that some companies have had trouble selling in recent weeks, which would leave the bank holding their assets.

Arlene Roberts, a State Street spokeswoman, said "there isn't an issue" with the conduits, and said the company was "just baffled" by interest in them.

"State Street's conduit program was established at the request of our clients and has been in place since 1992. The credit quality of the assets is very good -- primarily AAA/AA assets," Ms. Roberts said. "The commercial paper continues to be sold daily." She said that the conduits hold credit-card, auto-loan debt and mortgages, but no subprime mortgages, which are made to high-credit risk borrowers.

Separately, market concerns focused on State Street's management of bond and short-term debt funds that hold asset-backed securities including subprime mortgages. One, the Limited Duration Bond Fund, sold privately to institutional investors, has fallen by 37% through the first three weeks of August, the Boston Globe reported yesterday. The fund had dropped 11% in July, when it had about $2.8 billion in assets. Ms. Roberts declined to comment on the fund or its performance.

Both Bear Stearns Cos. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. stepped in to bail out in-house hedge funds in an attempt to curb the reputation risk should they fail.

A State Street mutual fund sold to individual investors, SSgA Yield Plus fund, is down 7.6% in the last three months, according to mutual-fund watcher Morningstar Inc. Other ultra-short funds run by other fund companies are also down, but only by about 1%, because they put only small portions in asset-backed and mortgage securities, said Lawrence Jones, an analyst for Morningstar. Mr. Jones said the drop "raises questions" about State Street's "credit research process...they underestimated the risk of these asset-backed securities."

The Limited Duration Bond Fund in the past appears to have been included in 401(k) and other retirement-plan offerings through State Street's Target Date Funds offerings, including to State Street's own employees, according to a State Street document dated in 2006. Target-date funds are portfolios designed for retirement plans that tailor investments according to an investor's age.

As part of these offerings, some of the Target Date Funds would allocate a percentage of their assets to Limited Duration Bond Fund. For example, State Street 2010 Target Date Fund would have put 19.2% of its assets in Limited Duration Bond Fund, according to the State Street document. Its Income Fund -- aimed at those in retirement -- would have allocated 40%. In April, State Street appears to have removed Limited Duration Bond Fund from the Target Date offerings, according to a brochure on the Web site of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which offers a number of State Street's funds.

--Shefali Anand contributed to this article.
wsj.com

The end of the Greenspan Put?

Bernanke Breaks Greenspan Mold

From the Wall Street Journal
By GREG IP

WASHINGTON -- When Ben Bernanke was nominated to head the Federal Reserve in 2005, he promised to "maintain continuity with the policies and policy strategies established during the Greenspan years." But in handling his first financial crisis, Mr. Bernanke shows signs of a break with Alan Greenspan, the Fed's chairman from 1987 to 2006.

That shift is important in understanding why Mr. Bernanke hasn't cut the Fed's main interest rate yet, and it could alter investors' expectations of how the Bernanke Fed will function.

The Fed historically has had two major economic duties. Maintaining financial stability is one. Controlling inflation while preventing recession is the other.

To Mr. Greenspan, market confidence and the economy's growth prospects were so intertwined as to make the Fed's two duties almost inseparable. He cut rates after the 1987 stock-market crash and the near-collapse of hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 to prevent investor reluctance to take risks from undermining the nation's economic growth.

By contrast, Mr. Bernanke distinguishes between the central bank's two functions. So, on Aug. 17, the Fed cut the interest rate and lengthened the term on loans to banks from its little-used discount window in hopes banks would use the window -- or at least the knowledge it was available -- to lend to solid borrowers having trouble getting credit amidst the market turmoil. The action was aimed at restoring the normal functioning of disrupted credit markets, not primarily at boosting growth.

The Fed, meanwhile, hasn't cut the far more economically important federal-funds rate, charged on loans between banks, which is the benchmark for all short-term U.S. borrowing costs.

To be sure, all central bankers see a link between financial and economic stability. Falling prices for assets like stocks, bonds and homes and tighter credit conditions can damp spending and investment.

But, "There's no doubt they were trying to draw a distinction between using the main tool of monetary policy, which is the federal-funds rate, and aiming the discount rate at restoring the plumbing," says Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman.

To be sure, if Mr. Bernanke eventually cuts the federal-funds rate, as markets anticipate, the contrast with Mr. Greenspan will be less sharp. Mr. Bernanke will elaborate on the outlook tomorrow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, released a letter from Mr. Bernanke dated Monday that repeated the Fed's Aug. 17 pledge to "act as needed" to help the economy. Though there was nothing new in the pledge, traders said it contributed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 1.9% to 13289.29. (See article.)

Mr. Bernanke's approach to the credit crunch is, in part, an effort to undo perceptions fostered by Mr. Greenspan's rate-cutting interventions. Though successful, they drew allegations of "moral hazard" -- that is, of encouraging investors to act more recklessly because they think the Fed will protect them.

Neither Mr. Bernanke nor his closest colleagues, some of whom served under Mr. Greenspan, believe there ever was a "Greenspan put," a reference to a contract that protects an investor from loss.

Yet officials acknowledge the perception that the Fed has bailed out investors in the past. When the stock market crashed in 1987, Mr. Greenspan, then on the job for just two months, used aggressive open-market operations -- buying and selling government securities -- to pump banks full of cash, which caused the federal-funds rate to fall to about 6.75% from 7.25%. His priority was to keep banks well supplied with cash so that strapped securities dealers wouldn't fail for lack of financing.

"We shouldn't really focus on longer-term policy questions until we get beyond this immediate period of chaos," transcripts record him telling colleagues the day after the crash. The Fed kept the funds rate low in ensuing months, and the economy didn't skip a beat.

In 1998, Russia's default on its debt, followed by the near-collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, caused credit markets to freeze up, much as they have recently. Mr. Greenspan's reaction illustrated how much he considered investors' attitudes toward risk as intrinsic to the economy's health.

"It would be wrong to say that the change in psychology is all ephemeral just because we have not seen it in the hard data yet," he told colleagues. "It is the change in value judgments that alters the real world." The Fed cut interest rates three times by a total of three-quarters of a percentage point that fall. The economy accelerated, and the stock market, erasing its losses, went on to more spectacular gains.

Al Broaddus, research director and later president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond during Mr. Greenspan's tenure, says Mr. Greenspan's response in 1987 was right. "A 20% drop in the stock market was a clear threat to economic conditions." But he says that in 1998, he and some others were skeptical of the need for such drastic action to deal with market instability. "If we could have argued for something like Bernanke is doing this time as opposed to three funds-rate reductions, we might have done that."

Mr. Bernanke may yet have to cut rates. But the longer he waits, the more likely he can break investors of the assumption that market convulsions lead to interest-rate cuts. There is evidence he is succeeding. On Aug. 16, with stocks plunging and debt markets in disarray, money manager Bridgewater Associates wrote in its widely read daily commentary: "Credit in the economy is shutting down, and the Fed needs to ease now."

By this past Tuesday, with markets having settled down, the same firm wrote: "If we were in the Fed's shoes, we certainly wouldn't be in a hurry to 'save the system' until there was more evidence that the system needed saving."

SachsenLB Had EU46 Billion in `Secret' Investments, Says SZ

By Aaron Kirchfeld
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Landesbank Sachsen Girozentrale, the German state-owned bank ravaged by investments in U.S. subprime mortgages, had ``secret'' investments of up to 46 billion euros ($63 billion), Sueddeutsche Zeitung said, citing Saxony's government finance committee.
In addition to off-balance sheet investments in Dublin, SachsenLB also created so-called conduits in Leipzig in 2003 under the code name ``Dublin II,'' the newspaper said. The 13 affiliates in both cities account for the lion's share of the bank's off-balance sheet total of 65 billion euros, the newspaper reported.
The risks stemming from these investments for Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, which agreed to buy SachsenLB on Sunday, remain open, the newspaper said.
SachsenLB's supervisory board has accused the bank's management board and Saxony's finance ministry of ``grave mistakes'' in information policy and denying requests for additional data about the risks of the Dublin-based investments,
the newspaper said.

SachsenLB spokesman Frank Steinmeyer couldn't be immediately
reached for comment.

Liquidity daily

"il problema della liquidità è che non c’è mai quando ti serve. Fra il generale nervosismo, si moltiplicano le iniziative di alcuni dei partecipanti al mercato per ridurre limitare i danni dovuti all’improvviso inaridimento delle fonti di finanziamento a breve termine, con le quali avevano effettuato investimenti a lungo termine: la cosiddetta trasformazione delle scadenze, tipica attività bancaria che ha già causato più di una crisi finanziaria."

Continua su Macromonitor

Espresso contro Geronzi

Fonte: Dagospia

BAZOLI & PASSERA APRONO IL SETTIMANALE DI DE BENEDETTI E GODONO “GERONZI AL VERTICE DI MEDIOBANCA? IL CAPITALISMO ITALIANO NON HA ETICA” “COME CI POSSIAMO FIDARE DI CHI HA DEI CONTI IN SOSPESO CON LA GIUSTIZIA?” Massimo Riva per “L’espresso” Ma qual è il vero volto del capitalismo italiano? Di che pasta sono fatti alcuni suoi esponenti di maggiore spicco? A quale etica obbediscono i loro comportamenti? Quale sarebbe la loro capacità di aiutare la crescita economica, ma anche quella civile del Paese? Per chi ha imparato dalla storia che finora la democrazia politica ha prosperato soltanto se coniugata con una sana economia di mercato, simili interrogativi sorgono spontanei alla luce delle novità giudiziarie relative a due fra i maggiori scandali finanziari degli ultimi tempi: il crack Parmalat e la scalata a Banca Antonveneta. Vicende fra loro assai diverse, ma accomunate dal disprezzo delle buone regole mercantili che il variopinto cast dei protagonisti ha proiettato intorno a sé. Nello stesso giorno - di nuovo un fatidico 25 luglio - una quarantina di personaggi è stata rinviata a giudizio per il primo caso, mentre un'altra settantina di richieste di processo è stata avanzata per altrettanti inquisiti nel secondo caso. Insomma, più di cento persone, a vario titolo, coinvolte in assai discutibili imprese. Un numero così elevato è di quelli che danno da pensare, perché fa ritenere che non ci si trovi di fronte a qualche sparuta mela marcia, ma a una tendenza delinquenziale che, stando ai rilievi della magistratura inquirente, si presenta come un fenomeno ampio, diffuso e pervasivo nel sistema. Pessima impressione che risulta avvalorata dalla presenza di alcuni nomi di forte spicco tra i personaggi nel mirino dei giudici. (L'ex governatore di Bankitalia, Antonio Fazio - Foto U.Pizzi) Per la storia Antonveneta, niente meno che l'ex governatore della Banca d'Italia, Antonio Fazio: cioè, colui che per una dozzina di anni è stato il supremo monarca del mercato bancario nazionale. Cosicché oggi si apprende che taluni comportamenti del già potente numero uno del sistema creditizio potrebbero meritare un'infamante condanna penale. Mentre, in un filone specifico della vicenda Parmalat, è impigliato il gran patron di Capitalia, Cesare Geronzi, ora seduto alla scrivania che fu di Enrico Cuccia in Mediobanca. Anche in questo caso le accuse (concorso in bancarotta) sono di quelle che feriscono non poco l'immagine di chi esercita il delicato ruolo di banchiere. A maggior ragione, poi, perché lo stesso Geronzi ha già subito una condanna di primo grado per analoga imputazione nel processo relativo a un altro crack finanziario, quello del cosiddetto Bagaglino. In un paese dove il capitalismo avesse solide e profonde radici, simili eventi giudiziari avrebbero provocato reazioni severe e immediate, soprattutto da parte dei protagonisti del potere economico più attenti alla difesa della credibilità e del buon nome del sistema. Basti ricordare la durezza degli interventi legislativi e giudiziari con i quali negli Stati Uniti si è gestito lo scandalo Enron. Niente del genere in Italia. Gli ultimi sviluppi processuali delle vicende Parmalat e Antonveneta sono scivolati nella sostanziale noncuranza del mondo economico e finanziario, quasi si trattasse di questioni riguardanti un altro paese o, addirittura, un altro pianeta. (Giovanni Consorte - Foto Lapresse) Dalla Confindustria ai vertici del sistema bancario, tutti hanno nascosto la testa nella sabbia. Secondo una strategia dello struzzo che è stata magari aiutata da qualche fortuita concomitanza. In particolare dall'aprirsi, in connessione con il caso Antonveneta, di un fronte politico dopo la richiesta del giudice milanese Clementina Forleo di ottenere dal Parlamento l'autorizzazione a utilizzare nelle sue indagini le intercettazioni telefoniche nelle quali due leader di peso, come Massimo D'Alema e Piero Fassino, manifestavano il loro favore verso il tentativo di scalata alla banca padovana da parte del mondo cooperativo attraverso l'Unipol, allora guidata da Giovanni Consorte, a sua volta indagato. Forse era scontato che la chiamata in causa di personaggi politici di tale calibro finisse con l'esercitare una potere d'attrazione superiore nei confronti dell'opinione pubblica. Fatto sta che, con l'attenzione generale concentrata su Parlamento e dintorni, il 25 luglio del capitalismo italiano è stato archiviato come una giornata qualunque. Un ulteriore elemento che probabilmente ha favorito la silente indifferenza del mondo economico sugli sviluppi delle inchieste Parmalat e Antonveneta è dato dal fatto che la gran parte degli inquisiti si trova ormai in condizioni, diciamo così, di non nuocere per aver perso gli incarichi ricoperti. È questo il caso dell'ex governatore Fazio (dimissionario da quasi due anni) e del suo più prossimo sodale, il factotum della sventurata Banca Popolare di Lodi, Gianpiero Fiorani. Altrettanto può dirsi per l'avventuroso patron di Unipol, Giovanni Consorte, oltre che ovviamente per Calisto Tanzi estromesso ormai da tutto. Perché perdere tempo a pronunciarsi su personaggi privi di ogni potere e su incresciose vicende comunque del passato? Questa sembra essere stata la pavida consegna della nomenklatura finanziaria e industriale del Paese. (Gianpierino Fiorani in barca con la giovane Naike Rivelli figlia di Ornella Muti - Foto da 'OGGI') Atteggiamento che però rischia di fare da cinico paravento a una clamorosa eccezione. Fra i personaggi di maggior rilievo coinvolti in queste poco edificanti vicende ce n'è almeno uno che resta indisturbato al suo posto e, anzi, di recente ha perfino acquisito nuova e più importante posizione di potere: il già citato presidente di Capitalia, Cesare Geronzi, diventato nel frattempo anche presidente del consiglio di sorveglianza di Mediobanca a seguito dell'incorporazione della banca romana nel gruppo Unicredit. Cosicché la sua figura finisce per assumere inevitabilmente il ruolo di banco di prova dell'etica di comportamento del sistema bancario ma, più in generale, del capitalismo domestico in forza del peso cruciale di Mediobanca nella configurazione del potere economico nazionale. È il caso di ricordare, infatti, che l'uomo seduto al vertice dell'istituto di Piazzetta Cuccia ha ricevuto tanto importante investitura da una compagine di azionisti nella quale figura una parte sostanziosa del gotha finanziario nazionale: gruppi quali Pirelli, Pesenti, Ligresti, Mediolanum oltre che, naturalmente, Unicredit e Capitalia. Né meno rilevante è l'elenco pur sommario delle società partecipate da Mediobanca sulle quali dalla sua poltrona Cesare Geronzi è in grado di esercitare un'ampia gamma di condizionamenti. Innanzi tutto, il gigante assicurativo-bancario delle Generali, ma poi anche l'impresa editrice del 'Corriere della Sera' e la Telecom, nonché le aziende di alcuni suoi azionisti, quali l'Italmobiliare di Pesenti, la Fondiaria di Ligresti e ancora Pirelli. Una formidabile rete di potere economico che, con la recentissima alleanza con i Benetton, ha allargato la sua influenza anche alle infrastrutture autostradali e di nuovo a Telecom. È normale e ben fatto che questo imponente spezzone del capitalismo nazionale si faccia rappresentare e insieme cogestire da chi ha in sospeso sgradevoli conti con la giustizia? (Il ministro Di Pietro - Foto U.Pizzi) È davvero singolare che non si siano posti un simile interrogativo le figure più eminenti del capitalismo nazionale, ma neppure gli esponenti della classe politica. Due sole voci si sono levate sulla questione: quella del ministro Antonio Di Pietro, sul versante di maggioranza, e quella del deputato Bruno Tabacci dall'opposizione. Gli altri tutti zitti. Quasi a dare ragione a chi sostiene che la rinomanza di Cesare Geronzi come banchiere non nasce tanto dalla buona qualità dei suoi prestiti, quanto piuttosto dall'importanza delle sue frequentazioni oltre che da un'accorta scelta dei clienti da finanziare. Fra l'altro, quello del crack Parmalat non è neppure il primo e unico guaio giudiziario di Geronzi. Questi è già stato oggetto di una condanna in primo grado per bancarotta preferenziale (il ricordato caso Bagaglino) e ha subito per due volte provvedimenti di interdizione temporanea dall'attività da parte della magistratura. In tutti questi casi il consiglio d'amministrazione di Capitalia non ha fatto una piega, reintegrandolo nel suo incarico e nei suoi poteri non appena possibile. Analogamente si sono comportati i suoi colleghi di Mediobanca dove egli era allora componente del consiglio. Si dirà che simili atteggiamenti sono stati assunti in forza di un principio di civiltà fondamentale: la presunzione di innocenza che va riconosciuta a chiunque fino a quando l'eventuale condanna non sia diventata definitiva. E nel caso di Geronzi oggi siamo certamente lontani da questa meta. Resta, tuttavia, aperto un problema di stile e di opportunità che ora la posizione assunta dai legali dello stesso Geronzi rischia di rendere più acuto. Nel caso Parmalat questi è accusato di aver promosso un prestito di 50 milioni a Calisto Tanzi nonostante lo stato precario dell'azienda parmense, anche per favorire da parte di quest'ultima l'acquisto (per 18 milioni) di un'impresa d'acque minerali del gruppo Ciarrapico allora seriamente esposto verso la stessa Capitalia. Vicenda assai intricata, per la quale i legali di Geronzi non negano l'esistenza del prestito, ma eccepiscono che non esista un solo pezzo di carta comprovante il coinvolgimento del loro assistito in simile operazione. Una linea di difesa che potrebbe anche rivelarsi efficace nel provare l'innocenza di Geronzi nel caso specifico, ma che comporta un imbarazzante contrappasso. Se così fosse davvero, si finirebbe anche per dimostrare come dalle casse di Capitalia sarebbe uscito un prestito ad alto rischio e da ben 50 milioni senza che il presidente ne fosse avvertito. Un caso di disordine aziendale o di negligenza professionale tale da azzerare la credibilità anche del più limpido dei banchieri. (Profumo e Geronzi - Foto U.Pizzi) Sul 'Corriere della Sera' è apparsa nei giorni scorsi una lunga intervista con Alessandro Profumo, il numero uno di Unicredit, autore del grande accordo proprio con Cesare Geronzi per l'incorporazione di Capitalia e per il nuovo assetto del vertice Mediobanca. "Il fatto è", afferma, fra l'altro, Profumo, "che l'Italia è ancora un sistema chiuso, troppo protetto. Dove vige spesso la cooptazione collusiva. Serve un sistema più aperto che consenta di premiare il merito. Solo questo è l'antidoto per scardinare il sistema delle caste". Ben detto, perbacco! Questa sì che sarebbe l'etica di un capitalismo geloso del suo buon nome e utile alla crescita civile del Paese. Ma quando dalle parole ai fatti? Il banco di prova del caso Geronzi è lì che aspetta. Dagospia 21 Agosto 2007 Torna alla Home Page [invia questo articolo] Clicca qui per saperne di piu' su: Cesare Geronzi Carlo De Benedetti Antonio Fazio Giovanni Consorte Gianpiero Fiorani Le foto presenti su Dagospia.com sono state in larga parte prese da Internet,e quindi valutate di pubblico dominio. Se i soggetti o gli autori avessero qualcosa in contrario alla pubblicazione, non avranno che da segnalarlo alla redazione - indirizzo e-mail rda@byworks.com, che provvederà prontamente alla rimozione delle immagini utilizzate.