por admin » Jue Mar 31, 2011 3:09 pm
Irlanda camino a la nacionalizacion de su banca
Irish Banks Move Toward Nationalization
By DAVID ENRICH
Ireland is on track to nationalize its banking sector after its government uncovered a €24 billion ($33.9 billion) capital shortfall in the latest round of "stress tests" of top banks.
That gap will be plugged largely by taxpayers. The likely result will be that the government takes majority ownership of the country's six largest lenders, said Patrick Honohan, the governor of Ireland's central bank.
In a bid to end a 30-month banking crisis that forced Ireland to accept a €67.5 billion international bailout package and contributed to the ousting of its government, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Thursday that he will reorganize the sector around two heavily capitalized "pillar banks," Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks PLC. At least three other lenders will be shut down or merged into other banks, he said.
The government already has pumped €46.3 billion into its banks since 2009, meaning the tab could swell to €70 billion if the government has to foot the entire bill. That would represent more than €15,000 for each of Ireland's 4.5 million residents. Some of the new cost will ultimately be covered by the €67.5 billion bailout, but some funds may also come from either private investors or capital-raising actions by the banks.
"This proves to have been one of the costliest banking crises in history," Mr. Honohan said.
Irish government and regulatory officials are hoping that Thursday's announcements will finally resolve a banking crisis that has been raging since September 2008. But key questions remain unanswered, including who will cough up the €24 billion needed to fully replenish the banks' coffers.
Mr. Noonan said the latest capital holes will be filled by a combination of public and private funds, imposing losses on some holders of the banks' bonds, and proceeds from the banks selling certain assets. For example, Irish Life & Permanent PLC, which needs to raise €4 billion, is starting to look for buyers for its insurance and pensions businesses, Irish officials said.
The stress tests found that Allied Irish Banks, once Ireland's leading lender, needs €13.3 billion in additional capital. It will be merged with a struggling savings bank, EBS, which needs €1.5 billion in new capital. Bank of Ireland needs €5.2 billion.
The tests didn't look at Anglo Irish Bank Corp., a commercial-property lender that already has received €29.3 billion in government funds. Anglo, which is in the process of being shut down, on Thursday reported that it lost €17.7 billion last year, on top of the €12.7 billion it lost in 2009.
Mr. Noonan said the government is separately reviewing whether Anglo and another lender, Irish Nationwide Building Society, might need more capital as well. He said that review will be completed in May.
Last fall, the spiraling costs of repeatedly bailing out its banks pushed Ireland close to insolvency, forcing it to accept the €67.5 billion foreign bailout. That lifeline included up to €35 billion earmarked for future capital injections into the banks—an amount that will be sufficient to cover the shortfall identified Thursday. Ireland will ultimately have to repay that money, plus interest.
Ireland's latest efforts to defuse its banking woes come as a long-simmering crisis in the euro zone shows signs of worsening.
Portugal on Thursday restated its budget deficit, which is now at 8.6% of its gross domestic product, exceeding its target levels. The new estimate, coming a week after Portugal's prime minister resigned in the wake of failing to get a budget approved, caused the country's borrowing costs to rise to record highs. Many experts predict Portugal will have to follow Ireland and Greece's examples and take a foreign rescue.
Meanwhile, Spain is struggling to battle its own banking crisis caused by the collapse of its real-estate sector. Its banks, along with those in other financially shaky countries, are relying on the European Central Bank to finance their daily operations.
Irish officials had been hoping that Thursday's announcements would be accompanied by the ECB creating a new lending facility to aid struggling banks. But Mr. Honohan said the ECB talks had stalled, although the central bank will continue to bankroll the Irish lenders.
The ECB said it welcomed the stress-test results. It said it would suspend ratings requirements for Irish government debt, meaning Dublin's bonds will be accepted as collateral for ECB loans even if they fall below investment-grade status. The ECB made a similar concession for Greece last year, a lifeline for commercial banks.
The Irish stress tests appeared to be considerably more rigorous than what regulators in the U.S. and European Union conducted during the crisis. Irish officials hoped to make the tests' assumptions so draconian that they would erase any doubts about their rigor.
The tests gauge the banks' ability to weather losses in a deteriorating economic environment, similar to what other tests have examined. They then go a step further and simulate an even deeper round of losses based on conditions in some hard-hit U.S. real-estate markets. Finally, the tests call for an additional buffer for any unforeseeable losses.
Banks would need to raise more capital if their core Tier 1 capital—a key measure of their abilities to absorb sudden losses—falls below 6% of their risk-weighted assets. That is a tougher threshold than most other stress tests have used.
Irish leaders' attempts to portray Thursday's announcements as the final episode in the banking crisis were undermined by similar claims in the past.
"We now know the extent of the losses in our banks," Ireland's then-finance minister, Brian Lenihan, said on March 30, 2010, after announcing plans to put about €12 billion into three banks. Since then, Irish banks have had to receive more than €23 billion in taxpayer funds, not including Thursday's announcement.
Asked on Thursday whether he was confident this marked the end of Ireland's attempts to get its arms around the banks' losses, a person involved in the stress-testing process said: "We've got a high degree of confidence that we've got to the bottom of the case, but never say never when it comes to losses in banks, and in particular losses in Irish banks."
—Brian Blackstone and Geoffrey Smith contributed to this article.