是是非非

Finance & Economics

Bank capital

Rights and wrongs 是是非非

Apr 3rd 2008

From The Economist print edition

Having lost fortunes, banks such as UBS now have to raise money again

亏损之后，UBS这样的银行又要募集资金了

THE story of global banking in the past year has been one of riches to rags. On April 1st it became clear that this might be a good time for a whip round.

近年来的全球银行业的发展颇具“揶揄性”。4月1日看起来是它翻身的时候了。

That, in a nutshell, was the message UBS and Lehman Brothers transmitted to their troubled banking peers when the Swiss bank announced plans to raise SFr15 billion ($15 billion) through a rights issue, and Lehman raised $4 billion from selling additional shares.

UBS和雷曼兄弟向他们被困扰着的同行们传达了这一简单的信息。UBS宣布将通过增发获得150亿瑞士法郎（150亿美元），而雷曼兄弟将出售价值40亿美元的附加股份。

Far from balking at the new calls on their cash, shareholders leapt at the opportunity—Lehman raised $1 billion more than it had initially sought and its battered shares rose 18%. UBS's share price also climbed steeply, even though it announced another $19 billion in write-downs on subprime-related and other mortgage securities. Part of the price paid by UBS to its long-suffering shareholders was the head of Marcel Ospel, its chairman and architect of the 1998 merger that transformed the bank into one of the world's biggest. It was little consolation, however, that he will be replaced by Peter Kurer, the bank's general counsel, rather than an outsider untainted by the mess.

作为对增发的回应，股东们非但没有紧捂他们的钱袋，反而表现的争先恐后——雷曼兄弟比预期多获得了10亿美元，而且它增发后的股价上涨了18%。UBS方面，虽然其宣布次级贷款和其他抵押证券导致了它190亿美元的账面亏损，其股价依然涨势迅猛。马塞尔·奥斯佩尔则成了UBS给利益受损的股东们的牺牲品。奥斯佩尔曾是UBS的主席和缔造者，他通过1998年的兼并使UBS成为世界最大的银行之一。令人不安的是，瑞士银行现任首席法律顾问彼得·库瑞尔(Peter Kurer) ——而不是没有搅在烂摊子里的局外人——将接替奥斯佩尔出任董事长一职。

Under normal circumstances, rights issues are no cause for celebration. At times of duress, they can sound suspiciously like a mobster's “cough up or else” (“or else” meaning severe share-dilution).

一般情况下，增发并不值得庆祝。在被迫的情形下，增发听起来就像是一个罪犯“被逼供或类似”（“类似”意指严重稀释股权）。

But these are not normal times. For one, the near-collapse of Bear Stearns has shown that some banks' very survival may be at stake. If a rights issue makes survival more likely, shareholders may prefer to pay the price rather than risk everything—or almost everything. Secondly, investors are now so underweight in banks that share offerings may be a good opportunity to get back in if a corner has been turned. Better a bank that is acting conservatively than one that is in denial.

但现在可不是一般时期。首先，美国第五大投资银行贝尔斯登的濒临倒闭表明一些银行已经危如累卵。如果增发能是他们走出困境，股东们是愿意付出一定代价，而不愿冒失去一切或几近一切的风险的。其次，现在银行投资者的分量如此的不足，以至于增发可能是个他们重整旗鼓的好机会。

But has a corner been turned? The liquidity line thrown to investment banks by the Federal Reserve has given bullish investors the hope that the authorities will do what it takes to prevent any big bank going bust. On the other hand, first-quarter profit warnings from UBS and Germany's Deutsche Bank were anything but encouraging. UBS still has $31 billion of subprime and other ropy American mortgages on its books, not far below the $37 billion that it has already written down. Morgan Stanley and Oliver Wyman, a consultancy, estimate there could be up to $80 billion of additional mark-downs among the top 20 banks this year. Returns will be further hit by the need to raise new capital and use it more conservatively.

可转机是否已经到来？美联储给投资银行的资产流动性底限给予了乐观的投资者以希望：政府会不惜一切代价保住所有大银行。另一方面，UBS和德意志银行发布的第一季度的利润预期非常振奋人心。UBS账面上还有310亿美元的次级贷款和其它劣质美国抵押贷款，这与它已有的370亿美元亏损不相上下。摩根斯坦利和奥纬咨询估计今年排名前20的银行总共还会有多大800亿美元的亏损。结果会导致新的资金募集和更谨慎的资本运作。

Already, there is a growing acceptance among investors that banks need to recapitalise, either by selling assets, reducing dividends or issuing new shares. Regulators are increasingly letting it be known that once the worst of the crisis is over, higher levels of capital will be an essential quid pro quo for the liquidity support they have provided to banks since last year.

银行需要通过出售资产、降低分红或者发行新股来进行资产重组这一观点已被越来越多的人认同。政府正在让银行们认识到：一旦危机解除，更高质量的资本将成为政府向银行提供流动性支持的基本条件。

There is a danger of moving too quickly, however. A senior European banker expressed concern this week that onerous new capital requirements could have a crippling effect on lending, especially when fair-value accounting may be exaggerating the losses. That, he said, could cause the crisis to deepen further.

然而，矫枉过正的问题还是存在的。一位欧洲资深银行家在本周表示了对新的过于严格的资本条件的担忧：这将对贷款产生过分的限制作用，尤其是当公允价值会计原则可能夸大亏损的时候。那样的话，危机可能变得更加深重。