Greece
Resists Troika on Third Bailout as Draghi Protests Delays - (www.bloomberg.com) Greece fought off calls to consider a third
bailout as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned that the pace of
economic fixes is slowing, officials said after euro-area finance ministers met
yesterday. Greece has ruled out further aid -- which would come with another
raft of conditions -- after its current rescue ends, a Greek official told
reporters in Brussels. According to the so-called troika of International
Monetary Fund, ECB and euro-area authorities, Greece may need one anyway, an EU
official said. Further emergency aid will probably be needed as the government
still faces a funding shortfall, can’t count on financial-market support and is
slipping further behind on its commitments to overhaul the economy, the EU
official said. The troika’s concerns were underlined by Draghi’s warning to
Greek Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis that Greece should not assume its
reforms have been completed.
Austrian
Banks’ Bad Debt Eroded 65% of Profit Since 2008 - (www.bloomberg.com) Austrian banks must reconsider a business
model that forced them to use 44 billion euros ($60 billion), or almost
two-thirds of their profit since 2008, to provision for bad debts, the central
bank said. Austria’s largest banks, the biggest lenders in eastern Europe, must strengthen capital to catch up with
competitors, cut costs and remain wary of the next bubble, Deputy Governor
Andreas Ittner told reporters in Vienna today. If they do, the former communist
part of Europe still offers more growth than their home market, he said. “It’s
not the time to pull out of eastern Europe,” said Ittner, who heads banking
supervision at the central bank. “On the contrary, growth rates are still
higher there than in western Europe, but it needs to be sustainable growth.” Erste Group Bank AG (EBS), Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) and UniCredit Bank Austria AG expanded in
former parts of the Hapsburg empire after the Iron Curtain fell. Rapid credit
growth fueled bank earnings and economic growth until 2008 as clients borrowed
to buy homes, cars and consumer goods. When economic growth contracted, bad
loans and write-downs soared.
Complacency
Breeds $2 Trillion of Junk as Sewage Funded - (www.bloomberg.com) These
are boom times for complacency. To gauge just how comfortable the world of debt
has gotten, consider: -- Bond buyers handed $2 billion last month to Ecuador, whose socialist president forced a default
during the financial crisis while calling creditors “true monsters.” -- So many
investors piled into a May bond sale by Clear Channel Communications Inc. that
the radio broadcaster, with a credit rating that implies default is almost a
certainty, more than doubled the offering to $850 million. -- China’s Logan Property Holdings Co. defied
predictions of a slowdown in the nation’s real estate market by selling $300
million of bonds in May. The developer has negative cash flow and total debt
almost twice its cash and cash equivalents.
Germany
Favors Deutsche Telekom to Replace Ousted Verizon - (www.bloomberg.com) Germany favors Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) to replace Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)as a network provider after deciding to end the
American company’s contract in the wake of reports about spy surveillance by
the U.S. “The federal government wants to win back more technological
sovereignty and therefore prefers to work with German companies,” Tobias Plate,
an interior ministry spokesman, said today at a press conference in Berlin. Germany
is using an option in the current Verizon contract to end the arrangement next
year, Plate said, declining to confirm whether the government had any evidence
that the provider handed information from the network to the U.S. National
Security Agency.
Pope
Replaces Vatican Bank Managers as Profit Drops 97% - (www.bloomberg.com) Pope
Francis plans to replace the board and executives at the Vatican Bank after a
year of reorganization at the scandal-plagued institution in which more than
2,000 accounts were blocked and profit dropped 97 percent. “With the support of
the Holy Father and the Council of Cardinals, we are creating simpler, more
efficient structures for those serving the mission of the Catholic Church,”
Cardinal-Prefect George Pell said today in an e-mailed statement. Net income at
the bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR, plummeted to 2.9
million euros ($3.9 million) from 86.6 million euros in 2012.
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