After a remarkable economic success based on market capitalism, Ireland has drifted back into misery since the crisis of 2008 and risks turning into a Southern European type of state capitalism. Back in January 2011 we explained in this blog (see here) why the IMF program for Greece’s external adjustment would not work. Some of the reasons given then apply equally to Ireland (or Spain for that matter).
First, the Troika misdiagnosed the situation as a liquidity problem while in fact Ireland and Greece faced a solvency problem (albeit of a different nature).
Then, they treated the problem of excessive leverage in the wrong way. The two major mistakes in Ireland were the conversion of private debt into public debt and the reliance on internal devaluation to deleverage. It is easy to see why both policies were wrong.
Ireland had a typical situation faced by a family with irresponsible children that took excessive debt to pay for gambling losses at the Casino (or in its case to speculate in real estate). An obvious option to erase gambling debts was to default on the casino loans (in the case of the Irish real estate bubble the British and German banks). They could be charged with allowing bets that the gambler could not pay. One alternative would be to demand a debt restructuring involving partial debt forgiveness and a longer repayment period, so that with the help of family and friends (i. e. grants by national and EU institutions in the case of Irish borrowers) they could repay the remaining debt without damaging the credit of his family. Another alternative would be to ask the casino to accept an IOU without a redemption date (in case of the British and German banks accept money printed by the ECB).
Yet, the casino owners decided instead to force the collection of their loans from the children’s parents (i.e.Irish government). To save its reputation the family promised to honor the debts by putting them in their business balance sheet (the state budget in the case of Ireland). However, the debts were so huge that they would necessarily cripple an otherwise successful business (economy). It is easy to see why.
First, such an increase in leverage would bar the firm from market financing. Second, it would be forced to halt all modernization and maintenance investments. Finally, it would force the family to downsize by selling some of the best assets. Combining these three measures would inevitably lead to a lower competitiveness, declining productivity and a depressed local economy. As expected, in the last four years, investment in Ireland more than halved in real terms, while domestic demand declined by about one third.
However, the recourse to internal devaluation only made things worse. Imagine that the clientele of the parents business was mostly local (i.e. produced non-tradable goods in economists’ parlance). Therefore, cutting the wage of their workers would reduce its sales proportionally and reduce further the firms’ debt capacity.
Moreover, reducing nominal contracts in the labor market without a concomitant reduction in credit markets would inevitably lead to an increase in non-performing loans (which in 2011 indeed rose from 12% to 20%).
It is obvious that the policy of switching the debt burden from the private to the public sector only made things worse in Ireland. What we said about Greece applies equally to Ireland. It has only three options: a) to force a significant hair-cut on its bond-holders, b) to receive a major grant from other EU countries, or c) a mix of both. None of these is a pleasant solution but there is no other way out.
Showing posts with label debt capacity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debt capacity. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 September 2012
Monday, 25 July 2011
Leverage as Friend and Foe
As far as I am aware there are only four legal ways to become seriously rich in a short period of time: to inherit or marry into money, to hit a lottery or sales jackpot, to become the CEO of a large public company or investment fund in the USA or to leverage one’s way into wealth. Out of the four, only leverage is not fundamentally determined by destiny or luck.
Not surprisingly, this explains why, throughout history, leverage never ceased to fascinate people as a kind of “Aladdin's lamp” for immense wealth. In fact, the history of financial innovation is little more than a continual re-invention of some form of leverage. Leverage or gearing is the percentage of external financing and it is often measured as the ratio of capital to debt or as the ratio of total debt to total assets.
Indeed, credit is an essential element of market capitalism. It allows those with entrepreneurial spirit to invest beyond their own capital and gives those without such spirit the chance to share in the success of entrepreneurship. This means that passive investors must accept a lower return to make it worthwhile for entrepreneurs to take the added risk.
The case to make debt-financed investments applies equally to families and governments. So, in a closed economy this might create an impossible situation where everyone wants to be a net borrower, leaving the central bank as the only net lender by creating the money necessary to fulfill the demand for debt. In such a system those in charge of dispensing credit have an extraordinary power over the fate of the borrowers.
In practice market economies rarely reach this extreme situation for three main reasons. First, many people cannot or do not bother to search for investment opportunities with returns well above the risk free rate of return. In particular, families and governments are often in this situation. Second, many do not have the collateral required by lenders or do not fulfill the requirements to access non-recourse finance. Finally, leverage is a double-edged sword and not all can or know how to cope with the risks of debt-financing.
To understand that there is a thin line between fortune and misery in the use of leverage, imagine that one can invest up to four times the value of his capital to achieve an expected return of 25%. If he succeeds his return will be 100%. But what if instead of an appreciation of 25% there is a loss of 25%? He would be completely wiped out.
The fact that the likelihood of a 25% loss is very small is not enough comfort because it will happen one day. And, if one keeps reinvesting all his proceeds, he will lose all his previous gains. Any roulette player knows this, but people often tend to forget it. Especially when prices have been going always in the same direction, as happened recently in the real estate market (many people had never observed a fall in housing prices).
So is it true that leverage, like death, in the end will always finish by catching us on the wrong side of the bet? Not necessarily, provided that we do not re-leverage all our gains, do not exceed a prudent level of leverage and manage it correctly (for instance by not carrying leveraged positions over-night).
To be prudent one needs to answer the important question of whether there is an optimal level of leverage and what are its determinants. Unfortunately, neither in theory nor in practice can we find an answer to this question.
First, different assets have different levels of volatility (for instance in the last 10 years, intra-day, the Dollar never fell by more than 4.8% in the Euro/Dollar market while in the stock market the shares of Microsoft never fell by more than 12%). Second, in itself, leverage changes the optimal composition of investment portfolios. Thirdly, because the optimal level of leverage may be above what lenders consider safe and lenders are often prone to stampede behavior creating wild fluctuations in what they judge as safe or not.
But, most importantly, at the theoretical level we find ourselves in a difficult position. This is true, even after ignoring the wild fluctuations in banker’s lending limits while considering only the spreads (or mark-ups) they charge to compensate for risk. Theoretically the optimal level can be defined as the level of leverage that maximizes the difference between the returns achieved with debt finance and those obtained without any leverage. The problem lies in the fact that the two curves depicting the marginal efficiency of capital cannot be derived separately.
In the absence of estimates for the optimal level of leverage, prudence dictates that one should err on the down side by keeping a reasonable margin below the level of debt capacity acceptable to lenders. This can be easily defined in relation to margin requirements or the present value of future free cash-flows. With this proviso and knowledge of the nature of debt-financing, investors may be able to turn a potential foe into a friend.
Not surprisingly, this explains why, throughout history, leverage never ceased to fascinate people as a kind of “Aladdin's lamp” for immense wealth. In fact, the history of financial innovation is little more than a continual re-invention of some form of leverage. Leverage or gearing is the percentage of external financing and it is often measured as the ratio of capital to debt or as the ratio of total debt to total assets.
Indeed, credit is an essential element of market capitalism. It allows those with entrepreneurial spirit to invest beyond their own capital and gives those without such spirit the chance to share in the success of entrepreneurship. This means that passive investors must accept a lower return to make it worthwhile for entrepreneurs to take the added risk.
The case to make debt-financed investments applies equally to families and governments. So, in a closed economy this might create an impossible situation where everyone wants to be a net borrower, leaving the central bank as the only net lender by creating the money necessary to fulfill the demand for debt. In such a system those in charge of dispensing credit have an extraordinary power over the fate of the borrowers.
In practice market economies rarely reach this extreme situation for three main reasons. First, many people cannot or do not bother to search for investment opportunities with returns well above the risk free rate of return. In particular, families and governments are often in this situation. Second, many do not have the collateral required by lenders or do not fulfill the requirements to access non-recourse finance. Finally, leverage is a double-edged sword and not all can or know how to cope with the risks of debt-financing.
To understand that there is a thin line between fortune and misery in the use of leverage, imagine that one can invest up to four times the value of his capital to achieve an expected return of 25%. If he succeeds his return will be 100%. But what if instead of an appreciation of 25% there is a loss of 25%? He would be completely wiped out.
The fact that the likelihood of a 25% loss is very small is not enough comfort because it will happen one day. And, if one keeps reinvesting all his proceeds, he will lose all his previous gains. Any roulette player knows this, but people often tend to forget it. Especially when prices have been going always in the same direction, as happened recently in the real estate market (many people had never observed a fall in housing prices).
So is it true that leverage, like death, in the end will always finish by catching us on the wrong side of the bet? Not necessarily, provided that we do not re-leverage all our gains, do not exceed a prudent level of leverage and manage it correctly (for instance by not carrying leveraged positions over-night).
To be prudent one needs to answer the important question of whether there is an optimal level of leverage and what are its determinants. Unfortunately, neither in theory nor in practice can we find an answer to this question.
First, different assets have different levels of volatility (for instance in the last 10 years, intra-day, the Dollar never fell by more than 4.8% in the Euro/Dollar market while in the stock market the shares of Microsoft never fell by more than 12%). Second, in itself, leverage changes the optimal composition of investment portfolios. Thirdly, because the optimal level of leverage may be above what lenders consider safe and lenders are often prone to stampede behavior creating wild fluctuations in what they judge as safe or not.
But, most importantly, at the theoretical level we find ourselves in a difficult position. This is true, even after ignoring the wild fluctuations in banker’s lending limits while considering only the spreads (or mark-ups) they charge to compensate for risk. Theoretically the optimal level can be defined as the level of leverage that maximizes the difference between the returns achieved with debt finance and those obtained without any leverage. The problem lies in the fact that the two curves depicting the marginal efficiency of capital cannot be derived separately.
In the absence of estimates for the optimal level of leverage, prudence dictates that one should err on the down side by keeping a reasonable margin below the level of debt capacity acceptable to lenders. This can be easily defined in relation to margin requirements or the present value of future free cash-flows. With this proviso and knowledge of the nature of debt-financing, investors may be able to turn a potential foe into a friend.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Mandatory debt ceilings: yes or no?
Today, at 6:30PM, the US Congress is due to vote on vote on a bill that would raise the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit to $16.3 trillion without any accompanying spending cuts. The idea that mandatory debt ceilings inscribed in special legislation or even in the Constitution is again the focus of strong controversy in both the USA and Europe. However, many people oppose or support the ceilings on the basis of two apparently reasonable ideas.
For the opposing camp they are useless because they will be broken whenever politically expedient horse-trading takes place. The supporters defend them on the grounds that they force the politicians to compromise and thus reduce their impetus toward spending. However, both are misguided because they fail recognize what is the rationale behind mandatory limits.
When mandatory limits are imposed by creditors, its rationale is clear - to reduce the risk for existing creditors. However, when the limits are self-imposed the logic must be based on some idea of what is the optimal level of leverage. Here comes the problem – what is the optimal level?
To find the optimum leverage is extremely difficult in the case of private companies, and almost impossible in the case of governments. Fifteen years ago I worked on a corporate model for such purpose based on the common practice of using the debt coverage ratios demanded by bankers. However, because such optimum is constrained by the availability of collateral and the supply of leverage it means that in practice it is defined in relation to two volatile factors – the availability of investment opportunities with sufficiently good returns and loanable funds.
The recent credit crisis has shown again that when markets deviate from generally accepted trends the uncertainty caused by fear or euphoria will inevitably shift substantially any leverage levels previously defined as optimal.
For this reason in corporate finance we now prefer to use the concept of maximum debt capacity, calculated on the basis of the present value of projected free cash flows. Unfortunately, this is not easily applied to public finances because its accounting standards does not allow the calculation of the free cash flow and for the reason that the return on public spending is difficult to measure let alone forecast.
In the absence of a scientifically defined debt ceiling for normal circumstances (excluding war and massive natural disasters) it is wiser to rely on common sense and some prudence. So, if a ceiling is to be defined it should not be inscribed in the Constitution but on a special law approved by a qualified majority. The ceiling itself must be defined well below a conservatively defined level of leverage supply under normal circumstances using as a benchmark the corporate sector.
Otherwise, do not waste time fighting over arbitrarily defined ceiling limits, instead of the underlying policies.
For the opposing camp they are useless because they will be broken whenever politically expedient horse-trading takes place. The supporters defend them on the grounds that they force the politicians to compromise and thus reduce their impetus toward spending. However, both are misguided because they fail recognize what is the rationale behind mandatory limits.
When mandatory limits are imposed by creditors, its rationale is clear - to reduce the risk for existing creditors. However, when the limits are self-imposed the logic must be based on some idea of what is the optimal level of leverage. Here comes the problem – what is the optimal level?
To find the optimum leverage is extremely difficult in the case of private companies, and almost impossible in the case of governments. Fifteen years ago I worked on a corporate model for such purpose based on the common practice of using the debt coverage ratios demanded by bankers. However, because such optimum is constrained by the availability of collateral and the supply of leverage it means that in practice it is defined in relation to two volatile factors – the availability of investment opportunities with sufficiently good returns and loanable funds.
The recent credit crisis has shown again that when markets deviate from generally accepted trends the uncertainty caused by fear or euphoria will inevitably shift substantially any leverage levels previously defined as optimal.
For this reason in corporate finance we now prefer to use the concept of maximum debt capacity, calculated on the basis of the present value of projected free cash flows. Unfortunately, this is not easily applied to public finances because its accounting standards does not allow the calculation of the free cash flow and for the reason that the return on public spending is difficult to measure let alone forecast.
In the absence of a scientifically defined debt ceiling for normal circumstances (excluding war and massive natural disasters) it is wiser to rely on common sense and some prudence. So, if a ceiling is to be defined it should not be inscribed in the Constitution but on a special law approved by a qualified majority. The ceiling itself must be defined well below a conservatively defined level of leverage supply under normal circumstances using as a benchmark the corporate sector.
Otherwise, do not waste time fighting over arbitrarily defined ceiling limits, instead of the underlying policies.
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