Unicaja Banco offers a good investment opportunity which we consider is interesting from a price angle. UC is trading at a discount close to 50% – in terms of Price/Tangible Book Value – with respect to the main domestic banks (Caixabank, Bankia and Sabadell).
Unicaja has announced it has received sufficient demand to cover its stock market listing, due on June 30, and expects to raise 875 million euros. The offers presented are not binding as no definite price has yet been obtained.
Banco Popular’s management team, chairman Saracho and his CEO, Sanchez Asiain, will meet with the ECB tomorrow, according the economic press. It doesn’t seem as if there is any urgency behind the meeting, but rather that it is part of a routine monitoring process, aimed at analysing the bank’s current situation and options.
J. L. M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) |So where do we go now? Do we stop extending banking regulation or do we keep including more conditions? We look to the US, but actually the debate already started a few months ago in Europe. Many experts (some from the ECB itself) warned about the complexity of the measures taken up to now and about the risk this implied for the sector’s stability. And for the financing of the economy.
The banks are in crisis yet again, despite the aid they have received and the fact that regulation has been strengthened. Nobody trusts the banks, and even less the suggested formats to bail them out in case of a crisis.
ZURICH | UBS analysts | Corporate bond markets in Europe have been quite resilient through these past few sessions in both IG and HY, offering relatively good outperformance. It would appear it is increasingly becoming a case of just buy it (corporate bonds), because that’s what’s best. Don’t worry, one will be looked after – the ‘structure’ after all is in place. There may be no growth, but you are promised low interest rates (zero at the front end), low funding yields (lowest ever, iBoxx corporate bond yields at 1.4%), a low default rate (less than 3%) and your money back at maturity.
By Suki Mann and Thibault Colle (UBS) | We effectively have four-weeks of business left in 2014 and the path is clear for corporate bond markets to record some more upside in performance. That isn’t as welcome as it might at first look. Because we do actually need something for next year. We’re already sitting on excellent returns for 2014 of 7.7% in IG and 5.6% in HY; and with that, record low yields in IG (1.42%) and spread levels not seen since before the crisis (iBoxx IG at B+101bp). Supply in HY is at a record level (€72bn YTD) and we now have the second best year for issuance ever in IG non-financials (€201.6bn) after Tuesday’s deals from BskyB and RCI are accounted for.
MADRID | The Corner | The Financial stability board (FSB) is advocating an increase in regulatory demands of systemic banks: the so-called “too big to fail”. The details will be presented at tomorrow’s G20 meeting, but will effectively mean that more capital and liabilities can automatically be written off in a crisis. The basic requirement will be set at 15-20% of risk-weighted assets by 2019, although the final number will be higher (even more than 25% in certain cases) since lenders have to meet “other regulatory capital buffers,” according to the document, dated Sept. 21, quoted by Bloomberg.
MADRID | By Raimundo Poveda | Those who are interested in banking policy are doomed to learn some new term day in, day out. GLAC (i.e. “gone-concern loss-absorbing capacity”) is the capacity to absorb the losses of an unfeasible bank. Let us recall that the banking regulation declares a bank “unfeasible” not when it collapses but when it fails to comply with the minimum capital requirements –even if its financial assets are positive.
LONDON| By Barclays’ analysts | From the point of view of the banking system as a whole, the sovereign financial implications of Espirito Santo’s affair are rather limited. The sovereign has a relatively comfortable cash position and sufficient bank recapitalization funds. Specifically, the government estimates gross funding needs for 2014 of EUR13bn. At the same time, economic activity in Portugal is to expand by nearly 1% this year.