No Free Lunch for the Monolines.
Bond Insurer Split May Trigger Lawsuits, Analysts Say (Update1)
By Cecile Gutscher
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators' plans to break up bond insurers into ``good'' businesses covering municipal debt and ``bad'' businesses liable to subprime-related losses may trigger ``years of litigation,'' Bank of America Corp. analysts said.
New York Insurance Department Superintendent Eric Dinallo and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer said last week that insurers may need to be divided if they can't raise enough capital to compensate for losses on subprime-mortgage guarantees. FGIC Corp., the fourth-largest of the so-called monoline insurers, asked to be split on Feb. 15 after Moody's Investors Service cut the Stamford, Connecticut-based company's top Aaa ranking.
``Despite the regulatory interest in separating the exposures, the essential fact remains that all policy holders, whether municipal or structured finance, entered into contracts backed by the entire entity,'' analysts led by Jeffrey Rosenberg in New York wrote in a note to investors dated Feb. 15. A breakup is ``likely to lead to significant legal challenges holding up the resolution of the monoline issues for years.''
FGIC, owned by Blackstone Group LP and PMI Group Inc., insures about $314 billion of debt, including $220 billion in municipal bonds. The company said last week it applied for a license from New York state insurance regulators to create a standalone municipal company and separate the unit that guarantees subprime-mortgage bonds and related securities that led to rating downgrades.
New York-based Ambac Financial Group Inc., the second- largest bond insurer, may also seek a split, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing a person familiar with the situation.
Credit-Default Swaps
``The fact that one group of policy holders' exposures has imperiled the policies of the other does not mean they should forfeit the value of their claims altogether,'' the Bank of America analysts said.
Investors in credit-default swaps based on the bond insurers may also seek damages to compensate for losses, according to the research note.
Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. They pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a borrower fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A rise indicates deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline, the opposite.
The cost of credit-default swaps on Armonk, New York-based MBIA Inc., the world's largest bond insurer, has soared to $1.7 million upfront and $500,000 a year to protect $10 million of bonds from default for five years, according to CMA Datavision. Ambac credit-default swaps were at the same level as MBIA at the close of trading in New York on Feb. 15. The contracts, which cost $25,000 a year ago, trade upfront when investors see a risk of imminent default.
Any breakup of the companies may cause ``significant widening'' in the credit-default swaps as the structured finance company is likely to be ``deeply distressed,'' the Bank of America report said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Cecile Gutscher in London at cgutscher@bloomberg.net
By Cecile Gutscher
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators' plans to break up bond insurers into ``good'' businesses covering municipal debt and ``bad'' businesses liable to subprime-related losses may trigger ``years of litigation,'' Bank of America Corp. analysts said.
New York Insurance Department Superintendent Eric Dinallo and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer said last week that insurers may need to be divided if they can't raise enough capital to compensate for losses on subprime-mortgage guarantees. FGIC Corp., the fourth-largest of the so-called monoline insurers, asked to be split on Feb. 15 after Moody's Investors Service cut the Stamford, Connecticut-based company's top Aaa ranking.
``Despite the regulatory interest in separating the exposures, the essential fact remains that all policy holders, whether municipal or structured finance, entered into contracts backed by the entire entity,'' analysts led by Jeffrey Rosenberg in New York wrote in a note to investors dated Feb. 15. A breakup is ``likely to lead to significant legal challenges holding up the resolution of the monoline issues for years.''
FGIC, owned by Blackstone Group LP and PMI Group Inc., insures about $314 billion of debt, including $220 billion in municipal bonds. The company said last week it applied for a license from New York state insurance regulators to create a standalone municipal company and separate the unit that guarantees subprime-mortgage bonds and related securities that led to rating downgrades.
New York-based Ambac Financial Group Inc., the second- largest bond insurer, may also seek a split, the Wall Street Journal reported today, citing a person familiar with the situation.
Credit-Default Swaps
``The fact that one group of policy holders' exposures has imperiled the policies of the other does not mean they should forfeit the value of their claims altogether,'' the Bank of America analysts said.
Investors in credit-default swaps based on the bond insurers may also seek damages to compensate for losses, according to the research note.
Credit-default swaps are financial instruments based on bonds and loans that are used to speculate on a company's ability to repay debt. They pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a borrower fail to adhere to its debt agreements. A rise indicates deterioration in the perception of credit quality; a decline, the opposite.
The cost of credit-default swaps on Armonk, New York-based MBIA Inc., the world's largest bond insurer, has soared to $1.7 million upfront and $500,000 a year to protect $10 million of bonds from default for five years, according to CMA Datavision. Ambac credit-default swaps were at the same level as MBIA at the close of trading in New York on Feb. 15. The contracts, which cost $25,000 a year ago, trade upfront when investors see a risk of imminent default.
Any breakup of the companies may cause ``significant widening'' in the credit-default swaps as the structured finance company is likely to be ``deeply distressed,'' the Bank of America report said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Cecile Gutscher in London at cgutscher@bloomberg.net
posted by njdoc at 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
LE-MERIDIAN FUNDING SERVICES. We are directly into pure loan and project(s) financing in terms of investment. We provide financing solutions to private/companies seeking access to funds in the capital markets i.e. oil and gas, real estate, renewable energy, Pharmaceuticals, Health Care, transportation, construction, hotels and etc. We can finance up to the amount of $900,000,000.000 (Nine Hundred Million Dollars) in any region of the world as long as our 1.9% ROI can be guaranteed on the projects.
Le-Meridian Funding Service -Email lfdsloans@lemeridianfds.com.
lfdsloans@outlook.com
(WhatsApp...+1-989-3943-740 Or Call +1-913-9518-145)
Post a Comment
<< Home