Συμφωνίες 2,5 δισ. ευρώ με τις ιταλικές Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
και Banco do Brasil SA, αποκαλύπτουν μια τεχνική που βοήθησε την
Deutsche Bank να αποκρύψει τα δάνεια όταν έστελνε ρευστό στις τράπεζες,
σύμφωνα με έγγραφα που επικαλείται το Bloomberg.
Η Deutsche Bank AG, σταθερά μέσα στην κορυφαία τριάδα στις
παγκόσμιες πιστωτικές αγορές, κέρδισε από το 2008 δισεκατομμύρια δολάρια
από δάνεια σε τράπεζες σε όλο τον κόσμο τα οποία δεν εμφανίζονται στους
ισολογισμούς της.
Ο μεγαλύτερος τραπεζικός όμιλος της Γερμανίας κατάφερε να δανείσει σε τράπεζες από την Βραζιλία ως την Ιταλία, εξαφανίζοντας
τις συναλλαγές από τον ισολογισμό της, αν και ακόμα τις οφείλονται τα
χρήματα, ανέφεραν τέσσερις άνθρωποι με γνώση της εν λόγω πρακτικής και
εσωτερικών εγγράφων που έχουν δώσει στο Bloomberg.
Συμφωνίες 2,5
δισ. ευρώ με τις ιταλικές Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena και Banco do
Brasil SA, αποκαλύπτουν μια τεχνική που βοήθησε την Deutsche Bank να
αποκρύψει τα δάνεια όταν έστελνε ρευστό στις τράπεζες, σύμφωνα με τα
έγγραφα.
Από αυτά προκύπτει ότι είχε συζητήσεις για παρόμοιο
δάνειο με την Dexia, λίγες εβδομάδες προτού η τράπεζα ζητήσει διάσωση
και χρησιμοποίησε τις ίδιες λογιστικές πρακτικές για άλλες συμφωνίες ως
το 2011, όπως ανέφεραν δύο άνθρωποι με γνώση των συναλλαγών.
“Πρέπει
να είμαστε ιδιαίτερα προβληματισμένοι για την αδιαφάνεια και την
πολυπλοκότητα αυτών των συναλλαγών” ανέφερε ο Joshua Rosner, αναλυτής
στην Graham Fisher & Co στην Νέα Υόρκη, ο οποίος είχε προειδοποιήσει
το 2007 ότι τα παράγωγα που συνδέονταν με τα suborune δάνεια έθεταν
κινδύνους για την οικονομία.
Tα δάνεια συμπεριλαμβάνονται στα 395,5 δισ. ευρώ
που η Deutsche Bank αποκλείει από τον ισολογισμό της, αντισταθμίζοντας
τα με ισοδύναμα (equivalent) στοιχεία παθητικού, σύμφωνα με πρόσωπο με
απευθείας γνώση της πρακτικής. Η Deutsche Bank αποκάλυψε για πρώτη φορά
το συγκεκριμένο ποσό τον Απρίλιο.
Τα 395,5 δισ. αντιστοιχούν στο 19% του καταγεγραμμένου ενεργητικού της εταιρείας στ 2,03 τρισ. ευρώ.
Κίνδυνος απωλειών
Η
τράπεζα επωφελήθηκε από την πραγματοποίηση επιμέρους συναλλαγών γύρω
από τα δάνεια αυτά, συμπεριλαμβανομένης της πώλησης CDS για κρατικά
ομόλογα που αργότερα χτυπήθηκαν από την ευρωπαϊκή κρίση χρέους, σύμφωνα
με τα έγγραφα που περιγράφουν τις συμφωνίες με την Monte Paschi και την
Banco do Brazil και τρεις ανθρώπους με γνώση των συναλλαγών.
Τα
έγγραφα για τα δάνεια και άλλες δημοσιευμένες πληροφορίες δεν δείχνουν
πως εξελίχθηκαν τα στοιχήματα της τράπεζας ή αν οι ρυθμιστικές αρχές
γνώριζαν τις λογιστικές πρακτικές.
“Αντιμετωπίζουν τον κίνδυνο απωλειών” ανέφερε ο Θόδωρος Κρίντας,
διαχειριστής του Attica Wealth Management, το οποίο διαχειρίζεται 100
εκατ. ευρώ, μεταξύ των οποίων και μετοχές της Deutsche Bank. “Από την
σκοπιά του επενδυτή, θα ήθελα πραγματικά πάρα πολύ να μάθω” πρόσθεσε.
Yπερβολικό netting
Η
Deutsche Bank είχε επίσης συμφωνίες για μακροπρόθεσμα repos με τρεις
άλλες τράπεζες – την Εθνική, το Ταχυδρομικό Ταμιευτήριο και την Al
Khaliji του Κατάρ, σύμφωνα με τέσσερις ανθρώπους με άμεση γνώση των
συναλλαγών. Οι συναλλαγές περιλάμβαναν εργαλεία μείωσης του πιστωτικού κινδύνου
(netting), σύμφωνα με άνθρωπο που ενημερώθηκε για τον τρόπου με τον
οποίο τα αποτίμησε η Deutsche Bank. Το Bloomberg δεν βρήκε έγγραφα
σχετικά με τα τρία δάνεια.
Εκπρόσωπος της Deutsche Bank ανέφερε σε
γραπτή απάντηση ότι οι πληροφορίες και για τα έξι deals δεν είναι
ακριβείς και “περιλαμβάνουν αναφορές σε συναλλαγές που ποτέ δεν συνέβησαν” και για εταιρείες για τις οποίες η γερμανική τράπεζα ποτέ δεν πούλησε repos.
Δεν διευκρίνισε ποιες ακριβώς πληροφορίες είναι λανθασμένες.
Ελληνικά δάνεια
Στην
Ελλάδα, το Ταχυδρομικό Ταμιευτήριο δανείστηκε τουλάχιστον 100
εκατομμύρια ευρώ από την Deutsche Bank, σύμφωνα με δύο ανθρώπους με
γνώση της συμφωνίας. Η Εθνική Τράπεζα, έλαβε 220 εκατομμύρια ευρώ,
ανέφερε η μια πηγή.
“Δεν μπορούμε να δώσουμε οποιαδήποτε
πληροφορία για την συμφωνία αυτή, γιατί ήταν μια διμερής συναλλαγή
μεταξύ τραπεζών” σημείωσε ο Πέτρος Χριστοδούλου, αναπληρωτής CEO, στην Εθνική Τράπεζα
Ο Χάρης Σιγανός,
CEO του Ταχυδρομικού Ταμιευτηρίου, δεν θέλησε να κάνει κάποιο σχόλιο
στο Bloomberg, όπως και ο εκπρόσωπος της Banco Popolare, της Banco do
Brasil και της Dexia.
http://www.euro2day.gr/news/world/article/1116169/bbg-ta-kryfa-daneia-ths-deutsche-bank.html
bloomberg.com
Deutsche Bank Opaque Loans From Brazil to Italy Hide Risk
Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), perennially among
the top three in global credit markets, made billions of dollars
of loans to banks worldwide since 2008 and accounted for them in
a way that obscured their continuing risk to investors.
Germany’s largest bank managed to lend to firms from Brazil
to Italy while making the transactions disappear from its
balance sheet, even though it still is owed the money, according
to four people with knowledge of the practice and internal
documents provided to Bloomberg News.
Deals totaling 2.5 billion euros ($3.3 billion) involving
Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA and Banco do Brasil
SA reveal a technique that obscured Deutsche Bank’s lending
reach when it sent cash to the banks, the documents show. The
company had talks about a similar loan to Dexia SA (DEXB) weeks before
that firm was rescued, according to the documents, and it used
the same accounting for other deals through 2011, two of the
people with knowledge of the transactions said.
“We should be very concerned about the opacity and
complexity of these transactions,” said Joshua Rosner, an
analyst at research firm Graham Fisher & Co. in New York who
warned in early 2007 that securities linked to subprime loans
posed risks to the economy.
The loans are among 395.5 billion euros in assets that
Deutsche Bank excludes from its balance sheet by offsetting them
with equivalent liabilities, according to a person with direct
knowledge of the practice. Deutsche Bank disclosed the amount
for the first time in April under new international financial
reporting standards. The total represents 19 percent of the
company’s reported assets of 2.03 trillion euros.
‘Intended Spirit’
Kathryn Hanes, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank, said the
Frankfurt-based lender follows accounting rules “meticulously,
conservatively and taking into account their intended spirit”
and started reporting “these positions on a gross basis for
even greater transparency.” She said the amount of any offset
loans is “immaterial to our balance sheet and key ratios.”
Thomas Blees, a spokesman in Berlin for KPMG, which has
audited the lender since 1990, declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank’s accounting for the loans, described in
documents for some deals as “enhanced” repos, reduces reported
lending as co-Chief Executive Officers Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen seek to convince investors the company has enough
capital compared with assets to cushion against losses.
‘Market Risk’
The bank profited from arranging side trades around the
loans, including selling credit-default protection on government
bonds later battered by Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis,
according to documents describing the Monte Paschi and Banco do
Brasil deals and three people with knowledge of the transactions
who asked not to be identified because the loans are private.
The loan documents and other published information don’t
show how the lender’s bets fared or whether regulators were
aware of the accounting.
“They’re running a market risk,” said Theodore Krintas,
managing director of Athens-based Attica Wealth Management,
which oversees 100 million euros, including Deutsche Bank stock.
“From an investor point of view, I’d like very much to know.”
Documents about the Monte Paschi and Banco do Brasil loans
describing completed deals show they were structured to allow
for the offsetting, or netting, of assets against liabilities.
Deutsche Bank sought to use similar accounting for a 2009 loan
to Verona, Italy-based Banco Popolare SC (BP), which like Monte
Paschi was later bailed out, according to an internal Deutsche
Bank e-mail and a person with knowledge of the deal.
Increased Netting
Deutsche Bank also had long-term repo deals with three
other lenders -- National Bank of Greece SA (ETE), Athens-based
Hellenic Postbank SA (TT) and Qatar’s Al Khaliji -- according to four
people with direct knowledge of the financings. The transactions
involved netting, according to one of the people, who was
briefed on how Deutsche Bank accounted for them. No documents
about the three loans were made available to Bloomberg News.
By the third quarter of 2009, the amount of netting was
expanding at a pace that led at least two senior executives to
express concern that the bank’s assets would increase if they
could no longer offset the loans, the person said.
Deutsche Bank’s Hanes said in a written response to
questions about all six deals that “the information is
inaccurate” and “includes references to purported transactions
that never occurred, and in respect of companies for which we
have never structured enhanced repurchase transactions.”
She wouldn’t specify what information might be in error or
dispute specific deals.
“We do not comment on client transactions,” Hanes said.
‘Skewed’ View
Every billion euros Deutsche Bank kept off its balance
sheet inflated measures of its financial health, including
capital ratios, which otherwise might have compelled it to raise
more money from investors, according to Thomas Selling, an
emeritus accounting professor at the Thunderbird School of
Global Management in Glendale, Arizona, and a former academic
fellow at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Investors are relying on the financial statements for an
unbiased view of the risk of the bank, and that view has been
skewed,” said Selling, one of three accountants who examined
deal documents at the request of Bloomberg News. “It makes
their balance sheet look less risky than it really is.”
Deutsche Bank ranks last among global banks by at least one
risk measure -- the proportion of tangible capital to total
assets, known as the leverage ratio -- according to data as of
Dec. 31 compiled by Thomas Hoenig, vice chairman of the U.S.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which handles bank failures and
sets capital levels along with other bank regulators.
Capital Shortfall
Kian Abouhossein, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst in London,
estimated in a July 4 note to clients that Deutsche Bank may
face a capital shortfall of 12.3 billion euros under a proposal
by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to include assets
that are off banks’ books in leverage calculations.
Hanes said the company is “among the best-capitalized
banks in the world in our global peer group” after improvements
in its capital ratio and the sale of stock and subordinated debt
this year. Chief Financial Officer Stefan Krause said in an
interview with Boersen-Zeitung published July 6 that the firm
would reduce its balance sheet and set aside profit as
regulators implement stricter leverage rules.
Deutsche Bank has ranked among the top three underwriters
of international bonds, excluding self-led deals, since at least
2002 and is first this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It
also improved its standing among loan arrangers to third place
this year in Europe, Middle East and Africa, up from eighth in
2008, the data show.
Short Position
Deutsche Bank relied on what it called “no-balance-sheet
usage” to keep loans off its books, documents for the Monte
Paschi and Banco do Brasil deals show.
In a typical secured borrowing, a bank lends cash it
already has, recording the outlay as an asset on its balance
sheet. In exchange, it gets collateral that it holds until the
loan is repaid.
In the no-balance-sheet transactions, Deutsche Bank
received the collateral, sold it and used the cash to make the
loan. By selling the collateral -- government bonds, in the
deals reviewed by Bloomberg News -- Deutsche Bank created an
obligation to return the securities, allowing it to net to
essentially zero its assets and liabilities, the documents show.
The lender in effect created a short position on the bonds,
according to deal memos and internal e-mails about the
transactions. In a short sale, traders sell borrowed securities
and expect to buy them back at a lower price before returning
them to the owner.
Selling Collateral
Deutsche Bank was able to sell the collateral because it
didn’t have to return the bonds under the terms of the
agreement. Instead, the borrower agreed that Deutsche Bank could
return the “cheapest-to-deliver” equivalent in the event of
default, the documents show.
The German lender sold insurance against possible defaults
of securities linked to the collateral, in effect moving the
risk that the loan wouldn’t be repaid onto its trading book and
away from public scrutiny, according to accountants who reviewed
the documents for Bloomberg News.
Deutsche Bank is shielded from the deterioration of a
government’s creditworthiness because its client would have to
post additional collateral. It was on the hook if the country
defaulted on its bonds, the accountants said.
“It goes against the spirit of any regulation,” said
Arturo Bris, a finance professor at the IMD business school in
Lausanne, Switzerland, who examined the Deutsche Bank documents.
“Risks, like energy, get transformed but don’t disappear.”
IFRS Rules
The deals resembled repurchase agreements, or repos, in
which a borrower sells securities to a lender, promising to buy
them back at a future date at an agreed-upon price. Unlike
typical repos, which are reported as loans and mature in as
short a period as hours, the Deutsche Bank trades lasted five
years or longer and weren’t recorded as assets, documents show.
To keep loans off the balance sheet, Deutsche Bank
executives invoked International Financial Reporting Standards
rule IAS 32, which requires certain financial instruments to
cancel each other if obligations are settled simultaneously or
net throughout the life of the deal, the documents show.
“Reporting on a net basis is an obligation, not an
optional accounting treatment,” Deutsche Bank’s Hanes said.
Default Insurance
By agreeing to accept the cheapest asset in the event of
default, Monte Paschi and Banco do Brasil effectively insured
the bonds they gave Deutsche Bank as collateral. They paid
interest on the borrowed cash and kept earning the coupons on
the bonds, which they accounted for as still owning because they
were, in effect, due to receive them back, the documents show.
Deutsche Bank in turn earned a premium by acting as a
broker on the default insurance by selling credit-default
protection to investors, allowing the bank to record a profit at
the outset. It reaped about 60 million euros that way at the
start of the Monte Paschi deal, profit that was booked by the
bank’s rates unit, the documents show.
The deal is described in internal Deutsche Bank memos as a
“structured term” repo. In public filings, Monte Paschi labels
the financing both as a long-term repo and as “total return
swaps” in which the Italian lender receives cash for bonds.
Investors wouldn’t have known the netted-out deals existed
because Deutsche Bank’s regulatory filings describe accounting
practices that indicate it probably was showing the full loan
amounts, two accountants who reviewed the deals said.
Followed Rules
Since 2010, the company’s annual reports have included
repos among the types of transactions it says it normally
records in gross amounts, rather than net.
“Repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements are also
presented gross, as they also do not settle net in the ordinary
course of business,” Deutsche Bank said in the filings.
Still, the company continued to use netting to account for
new long-term repos through at least 2011, according to two
people with knowledge of the treatment. The pace of loans slowed
as the European Central Bank stepped in with its own crisis
lending, one person said.
“They cleverly found a way to exploit the law and followed
the rules to the letter,” said Barry Epstein, a principal of
forensic accounting and litigation consulting at Chicago-based
Cendrowski Corporate Advisors, who reviewed deal documents.
The transactions were designed by the company’s investment
bank, whose co-head at the time, Jain, helped build the lender
into one of the world’s biggest securities firms. Jain, 50, was
appointed co-CEO of Deutsche Bank last year.
Monte Paschi
The bank’s 2 billion-euro loan to Monte Paschi in 2008,
first disclosed by Bloomberg News in January, is being
investigated by Siena prosecutors because the Italian firm used
the transaction to hide losses.
Deutsche Bank hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in the
matter. The deal “was subject to our rigorous internal approval
processes and also received the requisite approvals of the
client,” the firm has said. Jain declined to comment about the
loans to banks.
The documents outlining Deutsche Bank’s design and
bookkeeping of loans to Monte Paschi and Banco do Brasil provide
a glimpse of the other side of such transactions and reveal
their deployment beyond Italy.
When credit markets seized up in 2008, executives at
Deutsche Bank’s global rates group in London, led at the time by
Michele Faissola, along with bankers at other units, worked on
long-term repo deals to help quench financial firms’ thirst for
cash. Faissola, now the company’s global head of asset and
wealth management, declined to comment.
Dexia Deal
The deals discussed in documents and cited by people with
knowledge of the transactions involved some of the world’s most-troubled banks and economies at a perilous moment. They included
the 2009 loan of 200 million euros to Banco Popolare, which like
Monte Paschi took state aid from Italy.
Deutsche Bank executives approved a similar transaction
with Dexia, the Franco-Belgian lender that was later bailed out,
documents show. In a four-page memo that concludes with the
words “Approved 8 August 2008,” the bank’s Accounting
Technical Forum described the cash outlay as a loan.
“DB in effect has a financing transaction and books a loan
to reflect this,” the accounting group said.
A one-page annex explained that Deutsche Bank would offset
the loan with its obligation to return the value of the bonds to
Brussels-based Dexia.
“No such trade was executed between Deutsche Bank and
Dexia,” Hanes said.
Still, the planned financing provided a blueprint bankers
proposed using for future deals, the documents show. A February
2009 memo from the accounting group explained that approval for
an enhanced repo with Banco do Brasil was restricted because of
a “limitation of Euro 5bn on the repo netting determined under
the initial Dexia trade approval from 2008.”
Greek Loans
Banco do Brasil, controlled by the Brazilian government,
participated in a five-year deal with Deutsche Bank in 2009, in
which it borrowed about $500 million, according to two people
with knowledge of the financing.
Al Khaliji borrowed $42 million from Deutsche Bank in 2009
in a long-term repo backed by Qatari government bonds, according
to an executive at the Doha-based lender who asked not to be
named in line with company policy.
In Greece, which sparked Europe’s debt crisis by revealing
in October 2009 that its budget deficit was more than double
previous estimates, Hellenic Postbank borrowed at least 100
million euros from Deutsche Bank, according to two people with
knowledge of the deal. National Bank of Greece, the country’s
biggest lender, received 220 million euros, one person said.
“We cannot give any disclosure or information on that deal
because it was a bilateral transaction between banks,” said
Petros Christodoulou, deputy CEO of National Bank of Greece.
Harris Siganos, CEO of state-controlled Hellenic Postbank,
declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Banco Popolare,
Brasilia-based Banco do Brasil and Dexia.
Bafin, Bundesbank
The documents reviewed by Bloomberg don’t indicate whether
regulators in Germany or elsewhere knew about the deals. Sven Gebauer, a spokesman for German financial watchdog Bafin, said
confidentiality prohibits the regulator from commenting on
specific companies or transactions.
Ute Bremers, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt-based Bundesbank,
Germany’s central bank, declined to comment, as did John Nester
at the SEC in Washington. A spokesman for the London-based
International Accounting Standards Board, which sets rules, said
the group doesn’t comment on how they are applied.
Project Santorini
“The figures should be disclosed,” said Edgar Loew, an
honorary professor at WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in
Vallendar, Germany, who examined the Deutsche Bank documents for
Bloomberg News. “This type of accounting was not intended by
the rules.”
Loew, who previously held positions at KPMG and Deutsche
Bank, said he wasn’t involved in preparing the bank’s public
filings that would have addressed such deals.
By the end of 2009, the European debt crisis had set in,
pummeling the bonds underlying some of the agreements and
eroding the capital of banks, including Monte Paschi, which used
a cash-for-bonds repurchase agreement with Deutsche Bank to
conceal about 429 million euros of losses.
Siena prosecutors are scrutinizing the deal, dubbed Project
Santorini, as part of probes into fraud, false bookkeeping and
obstruction of regulatory supervision at the world’s oldest
bank, court papers show. The Italian lender restated accounts
and, as of March 31, had to post 939.1 million euros of margin,
or guarantees on the Deutsche Bank transaction, which includes
an interest-rate swap, Monte Paschi said on April 24.
‘Grave Concerns’
By this year, even the off-balance-sheet lending couldn’t
spare Deutsche Bank from the need to raise more money. It sold
almost $3.9 billion of shares in April and about $1.5 billion of
subordinated debt in anticipation of stricter capital rules.
Shareholders can be certain of a lender’s health only if
they understand the activities a bank engages in, said
Christopher Wheeler, an analyst at Mediobanca SpA in London.
“There’s been a lot of noise around the tools used by the
bank to boost capital and reduce leverage since the crisis,”
Wheeler said. “If this particular kind of mechanism were found
to have been used, there would be grave concerns about whether
its current capital and leverage ratios are a true reflection of
the bank’s financial position.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-11/deutsche-bank-opaque-loans-from-brazil-to-italy-hide-risk.html