TOP
STORIES:
Greek Default Risk Returns as Bond Maturity Nears - (www.bloomberg.com) Two months after forcing through the biggest-ever sovereign bond
restructuring, Greece once again
faces the prospect of becoming the first developed nation to default on its
debt. The government taking office after this weekend’s election has 30 days to
decide whether to make today’s interest payment on 20 billion yen ($250
million) of 4.5 percent notes maturing in 2016, or default. Then, by May 15,
officials must decide if they’re going to repay the 436 million euros ($555
million) due on a floating-rate note issued a decade ago. These are among about
7 billion euros of bonds whose holders took advantage of being governed by
foreign rather than Greek law to sidestep losses suffered under the
private-sector involvement rescheduling, or PSI. Paying the holdouts in full
would arouse the ire of Greek taxpayers, as well as investors who cooperated
with PSI. A failure to pay would signal Europe’s debt crisis is worsening.
Germans warns Greece: no cuts, no aid - (www.reuters.com) Leading German politicians warnedGreece on Tuesday that
the country would not receive a cent more aid unless it fulfills all the
conditions of its international bailout. An election on Sunday in Greece failed
to deliver a parliamentary majority for the two big pro-bailout parties,
plunging the country into political limbo and increasing the risk that another
vote may be required to resolve the impasse. On Tuesday, the leader of the Left
Coalition party, which benefited from rising anger over austerity to take
second place in Sunday's poll, declared Greece's policy pledges under its
EU/IMF rescue null and void.
Greece braces for repeat elections - (www.ft.com) Greece is
bracing itself for a repeat general election after its centre-right leader
failed to win leftwing support to form a “national salvation government” after
Sunday’s inconclusive outcome at the polls. “We
are now heading for a second vote next month in a deeply polarised atmosphere,”
said a disappointed government official. The repeat election would probably
take place on June 17, he said.
Italian Banks’ ECB Borrowings Increase to Record High in April
- (www.bloomberg.com) Italian banks’ borrowings from the European Central Bank reached
a record high in April, as the country’s lenders took up almost one-fourth of
the funds offered to lenders amid revived concerns about Europe’s debt crisis. Total borrowing by Italian banks rose to
271 billion euros ($353 billion) from 270 billion euros in March, the Bank of Italy said on its website today. Most of the funding,
about 268.4 billion euros, was from longer-term refinancing operations, while
2.6 billion euros came from the main refinancing operations, the data show.
Lenders in the entire euro area borrowed about 1.13 trillion euros from
the ECB, according to the central bank.
Wall Street Banks Depressed in Shift Defying Blankfein - (www.bloomberg.com) For banks such as Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), the
downpour shows few signs of stopping. Almost four years after the financial
crisis, their stocks are trading below liquidation values as investors like
Boston-based MFS, which manages $285 billion, forecast no rebound in revenue or
profitability soon. Last month’s shareholder rejection of executive pay at
Citigroup is the most public symptom of the frustration with large lenders and
their managements. “For whatever you’ve seen publicly that’s happened in the
last six months on pay, multiply that times 10 and that’s what’s actually going
on in private” between investors and bank executives, said Benjamin Hesse, who
manages five financial- stock funds and leads a team of 15 analysts at
Boston-based Fidelity Investments.
No comments:
Post a Comment