Monday March 30 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Banks Struggle to Unload Oil Loans - (online.wsj.com)  Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc.,UBS AG and other large banks face tens of millions of dollars in losses on loans they made to energy companies last year, a sign of investor jitters in a sector battered by the oil slump.   The banks intended to sell the loans to investors but have struggled to unload them even after cutting prices, thanks to a nine-month-long plunge that has taken Nymex crude futures to their lowest level since 2009. The losses mark a setback for Wall Street, after global banks earned $31 billion in fees over the past five years by financing energy-company stock sales, borrowing and mergers-and-acquisition transactions, according to Dealogic. Wall Street’s losses on the loans could have a chilling effect on some oil companies’ ability to fund their operations as investors take a more cautious view of the sector. “We’ve been pretty shy about dipping back into the energy names,” said Robert Cohen, a loan-portfolio manager at DoubleLine Capital who passed on some loans Citi was trying to sell. “We’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.”

A major US energy company has filed for bankruptcy - (www.businessinsider.com)  Quicksilver Resources filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. In regulatory filings, the energy company said it had $2.35 billion in debt and $1.2 billion in assets. Management said it would face a "potential liquidity shortfall" in the first quarter of 2016, for reasons including its mountain of debt and the oil crash, according to a regulatory filing. "Quicksilver's strategic marketing process has not produced viable options for asset sales or other alternatives to fully address the company's liquidity and capital structure issues," CEO Glenn Darden said in a statement. "We believe that Chapter 11 provides the flexibility to accomplish an effective restructuring of Quicksilver for its stakeholders." The oil and gas company based in Texas does not expect its US or Canada operations to stop, Darden said.

ECB Grants Greece Less Emergency Liquidity Than Requested - (www.bloomberg.com) The European Central Bank raised the maximum amount of emergency liquidity available to Greek lenders by 400 million euros ($435 million), less than the Greek central bank requested, people familiar with the decision said. The increase was approved by the ECB’s Governing Council on Wednesday, the people said, asking not to be identified as the council meeting was private. Greece requested about 900 million euros, one of the people said. Greek banks were cut off from regular ECB funding operations in February, forcing them onto Emergency Liquidity Assistance from the Greek central bank. The Frankfurt-based ECB has the power to curb ELA and is reviewing it weekly amid concern that banks will use it to finance the Greek government and so violate European Union law.

Greece pushes utilities to lend government cash - Kathimerini - (www.reuters.com) Greece's cash-strapped leftist government is pushing major state utility firms to lend the government cash through short-term repo transactions as it scrambles to avoid running out of cash, the Kathimerini newspaper reported on Thursday. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's government has already resorted to dipping into the cash reserves of pension funds through such transactions, officials told Reuters earlier this month. Kathimerini, citing unnamed sources, said the government was calling on the main utilities, such as the Athens Water Co (EYDr.AT) (EYDAP) and the Public Power Company (DEHr.AT), to undertake repo transactions in which state entities lend money to the Greek debt agency through a short-term repurchase agreement.  Kathimerini also named the telecoms company OTE (OTEr.AT) as one of those that Athens could look to for cash, though the Greek state only holds a 10 percent stake in OTE. The company is 40 percent-owned and managed by the German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom. PPC, EYDAP and OTE had no immediate comment.

After Pillaging Pensions, Greece Raids Utilities To Repay Troika; Bonds Plunge As Bank Run Accelerates - (www.zerohedge.com) The new Greek government, instead of seriously contemplating a Plan B outside of the Eurozone, was busy thinking of new ways to raid its own population just to repay the "loathed" Troika. In the latest sad indication of just how truly insolvent Greece is, Reuters also reported that days after raiding its own Pension funds to repay the IMF (which in turn lent the cash to Ukraine so it could repay Ukraine's obligations to Gazprom and thus Putin), the Syriza government is now raiding the major state utility firms to lend the government cash through short-term repo transactions as it scrambles to avoid running out of cash.

OTHER STORIES:

ECB weighs curbs on Greek banks’ government debt purchases - (www.ft.com)
Greek yields spike, stocks fall ahead of crunch debt talks - (www.reuters.com)
Brazil’s Real Declines to 12-Year Low as Rousseff Faces Dissent - (www.bloomberg.com)
The Dollar Made A Staggering Turnaround Overnight - (www.bloomberg.com)

Oil falls to $55 as Kuwait comments refocus on oversupply - (www.reuters.com)
Tsipras Heads to Summit as Merkel Tries to Defuse Greek Crisis - (www.bloomberg.com)
EU to tell Greece time, patience running out - (www.reuters.com)
Merkel Says No Quick Solution to Greek Financing Crunch - (www.bloomberg.com)
Swiss central bank slashes growth, inflation outlook; eyes on franc - (www.reuters.com)