Tweet
http://jeffmatthewsisnotmakingthisup.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
“Let’s keep going”: The Credit Markets Meet Their Inner Thelma and Louise
Thelma Dickinson: OK, then listen, let's not get caught.
Louise Sawyer: What're you talking about?
Thelma: Let's keep going.
Louise: What do you mean?
Thelma: Go.
Louise: You sure?
Thelma: Yeah, yeah. Let's.
—Thelma and Louise
Written by Callie Khouri
Seems to me the world’s credit markets have met their Inner Thelma and Louise.
For those not familiar with that movie of “lady fugitives on the run,” the quote above is from the final scene in which the pair of sympathetically-depicted criminals in their getaway car decide—police behind them and canyon in front—to “keep going” over the cliff.
Which is, it seems to me, exactly what the world's credit markets have decided to do en masse, so inexorable is their drive to lend to anybody with title to an asset—any asset—and a pulse.
The head-scratcher, of course, is that it was precisely the same type of non-existent credit standards that got America’s home-buyers, and their lenders, in trouble not so long ago.
And by “not so long ago,” I mean, “like, last week.”
For that is when HSBC announced a $1.76 billion dollar sub-prime debt impairment charge, blowing the collective minds of HSBC shareholders and U.S. sub-prime mortgage lenders alike.
Here's how last week's Wall Street Journal described the errors of HSBC's ways:
When the U.S. housing market was booming, HSBC Holdings PLC raced to join the party. Sensing opportunity in the bottom end of the mortgage market, the giant British bank bet big on borrowers with sketchy credit records.
Yet according to my Bloomberg, the lessons learned are not, apparently, stopping anybody from throwing money at leveraged buyouts the way HSBC was throwing money at the Thelmas and Louises of the sub-prime mortgage market.
Univision Seeking Record “Covenant-Lite” Loan for LBO — By Harris Rubinroit, Bloomberg
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Univision Communications Inc., the largest U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster, is asking potential lenders to forgo restrictions on a $7 billion loan to fund its leveraged buyout, according to investors who may participate.
Now, you might think that those “potential lenders” would have second or third thoughts before committing to such terms, what with the sub-prime blow-up still reverberating on the Wall Street Journal's front page this very morning:
Rising defaults are prompting some lenders to clamp down on the use of “piggyback” mortgages, a risky type of loan that allows borrowers to finance up to 100% of the purchase price.
Yet according to the Bloomberg story it would appear that sub-prime commercial borrowers are being courted with as much fervor as the sub-prime Thelma and Louise-type home buyers during the housing boom of, oh, eighteen months ago:
Univision is seeking a covenant-lite loan, which has no quarterly limit on the borrower's amount of debt relative to cash flow. The Los Angeles-based company also wants no quarterly requirement for the minimum amount of cash flow it must generatein proportion to interest expense, said three investors, who declined to be identified because the terms aren't public.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that looks suspiciously like a sort of corporate version of the “no documentation” loans described in the HSBC report just last week:
To speed up these purchases from other lenders, HSBC accepted loan paperwork that didn't verify whether borrowers made as much as they claimed. Mortgages that rely on the borrower's word about that are called "stated-income" loans. (More conservative lenders might demand full documentation of income.)
More conservative lenders than HSBC are not taking $1.76 billion charges for their fully documented loans.
And more conservative lenders will probably shy away from deals like Univision. But that is not stopping Univision from demanding the virtual equivalent of “stated-income” loans for its multi-billion dollar buyout from the HSBC's of the commercial markets:
The seven-and-a-half year covenant-lite loan would be the largest loan of its type. The money is part of $10.2 billion in financing to be used to help pay for Univision's $12.3 billion takeover by a buyout group that includes Madison DearbornPartners LLC, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Saban Capital Group Inc.
And despite what you heard Mick Jagger sing growing up in the early 70's, Univision will probably get what it wants.
The Univision loans are a ``function of excess liquidity in the market driven by institutional investors,'' said Neal Schweitzer, a senior vice president in corporate finance at Moody's Investors Service in New York. ``The loans are structured to weather a potential hiccup.''
As with HSBC and its sorry tale of woe, however, I suspect we will find in the not too distant future that the Univision loans are structured for nothing but the simple blind faith that the worldwide asset bubble will continue to expand—the same kind of blind faith that blew up HSBC:
"There was very little data on loans to subprime borrowers where the borrower put very little down," says Thomas Lawler, a housing economist in Vienna, Va.
Chris Freemott, president of All American Mortgage Inc. in Naperville, Ill., says it was a time when "everyone lowered their credit standards" in what he refers to as "a race to the bottom." Adds Mr. Hamilton at Lime Financial: "People got way too aggressive in pricing, and they weren't pricing for the risk."
And so the commercial credit markets, as did the sub-prime mortgage market once upon a time, “race to the bottom.”
While Thelma and her pal have already driven off the cliff.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2007 Jeff Matthews
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
“Let’s keep going”: The Credit Markets Meet Their Inner Thelma and Louise
Thelma Dickinson: OK, then listen, let's not get caught.
Louise Sawyer: What're you talking about?
Thelma: Let's keep going.
Louise: What do you mean?
Thelma: Go.
Louise: You sure?
Thelma: Yeah, yeah. Let's.
—Thelma and Louise
Written by Callie Khouri
Seems to me the world’s credit markets have met their Inner Thelma and Louise.
For those not familiar with that movie of “lady fugitives on the run,” the quote above is from the final scene in which the pair of sympathetically-depicted criminals in their getaway car decide—police behind them and canyon in front—to “keep going” over the cliff.
Which is, it seems to me, exactly what the world's credit markets have decided to do en masse, so inexorable is their drive to lend to anybody with title to an asset—any asset—and a pulse.
The head-scratcher, of course, is that it was precisely the same type of non-existent credit standards that got America’s home-buyers, and their lenders, in trouble not so long ago.
And by “not so long ago,” I mean, “like, last week.”
For that is when HSBC announced a $1.76 billion dollar sub-prime debt impairment charge, blowing the collective minds of HSBC shareholders and U.S. sub-prime mortgage lenders alike.
Here's how last week's Wall Street Journal described the errors of HSBC's ways:
When the U.S. housing market was booming, HSBC Holdings PLC raced to join the party. Sensing opportunity in the bottom end of the mortgage market, the giant British bank bet big on borrowers with sketchy credit records.
Yet according to my Bloomberg, the lessons learned are not, apparently, stopping anybody from throwing money at leveraged buyouts the way HSBC was throwing money at the Thelmas and Louises of the sub-prime mortgage market.
Univision Seeking Record “Covenant-Lite” Loan for LBO — By Harris Rubinroit, Bloomberg
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Univision Communications Inc., the largest U.S. Spanish-language broadcaster, is asking potential lenders to forgo restrictions on a $7 billion loan to fund its leveraged buyout, according to investors who may participate.
Now, you might think that those “potential lenders” would have second or third thoughts before committing to such terms, what with the sub-prime blow-up still reverberating on the Wall Street Journal's front page this very morning:
Rising defaults are prompting some lenders to clamp down on the use of “piggyback” mortgages, a risky type of loan that allows borrowers to finance up to 100% of the purchase price.
Yet according to the Bloomberg story it would appear that sub-prime commercial borrowers are being courted with as much fervor as the sub-prime Thelma and Louise-type home buyers during the housing boom of, oh, eighteen months ago:
Univision is seeking a covenant-lite loan, which has no quarterly limit on the borrower's amount of debt relative to cash flow. The Los Angeles-based company also wants no quarterly requirement for the minimum amount of cash flow it must generatein proportion to interest expense, said three investors, who declined to be identified because the terms aren't public.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that looks suspiciously like a sort of corporate version of the “no documentation” loans described in the HSBC report just last week:
To speed up these purchases from other lenders, HSBC accepted loan paperwork that didn't verify whether borrowers made as much as they claimed. Mortgages that rely on the borrower's word about that are called "stated-income" loans. (More conservative lenders might demand full documentation of income.)
More conservative lenders than HSBC are not taking $1.76 billion charges for their fully documented loans.
And more conservative lenders will probably shy away from deals like Univision. But that is not stopping Univision from demanding the virtual equivalent of “stated-income” loans for its multi-billion dollar buyout from the HSBC's of the commercial markets:
The seven-and-a-half year covenant-lite loan would be the largest loan of its type. The money is part of $10.2 billion in financing to be used to help pay for Univision's $12.3 billion takeover by a buyout group that includes Madison DearbornPartners LLC, Providence Equity Partners Inc., Texas Pacific Group, Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Saban Capital Group Inc.
And despite what you heard Mick Jagger sing growing up in the early 70's, Univision will probably get what it wants.
The Univision loans are a ``function of excess liquidity in the market driven by institutional investors,'' said Neal Schweitzer, a senior vice president in corporate finance at Moody's Investors Service in New York. ``The loans are structured to weather a potential hiccup.''
As with HSBC and its sorry tale of woe, however, I suspect we will find in the not too distant future that the Univision loans are structured for nothing but the simple blind faith that the worldwide asset bubble will continue to expand—the same kind of blind faith that blew up HSBC:
"There was very little data on loans to subprime borrowers where the borrower put very little down," says Thomas Lawler, a housing economist in Vienna, Va.
Chris Freemott, president of All American Mortgage Inc. in Naperville, Ill., says it was a time when "everyone lowered their credit standards" in what he refers to as "a race to the bottom." Adds Mr. Hamilton at Lime Financial: "People got way too aggressive in pricing, and they weren't pricing for the risk."
And so the commercial credit markets, as did the sub-prime mortgage market once upon a time, “race to the bottom.”
While Thelma and her pal have already driven off the cliff.
Jeff Matthews
I Am Not Making This Up
© 2007 Jeff Matthews
