Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Stressed: BoA Needs $34 Billion

The New York Times reports that Bank of America needs to raise $33.9 billion in additional capital according to the regulators who conducted the stress tests. BoA can either issue new common stock, or convert some of the non-voting preferred shares the government received for the TARP into common shares. And, of course, it's vital to keep in mind that economic conditions today are worse than the most "adverse" scenario regulators used for 2009 in the so-called stress tests. So if Geithner & Co. say BoA needs $34 billion, the actual hole in their balance sheet is likely much, much larger. From the New York Times:
The government has told Bank of America it needs $33.9 billion in capital to withstand any worsening of the economic downturn, according to an executive at the bank.

If the bank is unable to raise the capital cushion by selling assets or stock, it would have to rely on the government, which has provided $45 billion in capital through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

It could satisfy regulators’ demands simply by converting non-voting preferred shares it gave the government in return for the capital, into common stock.

But that would make the government one of the bank’s largest shareholders.

Executives at the bank, one of the largest being examined, sparred with the government over the amount, which is higher than executives believed the bank needed.

But J. Steele Alphin, the bank’s chief administrative officer, said Bank of America would have plenty of options to raise the capital on its own before it would have to convert any of the taxpayer money into common stock.

“We’re not happy about it because it’s still a big number,” Mr. Alphin said. “We think it should be a bit less at the end of the day.”

The government’s determination that Bank of America doesn’t need as much capital as it has already received from taxpayers is an indication that even some of the most troubled banks may not need more government money than has been allocated to them.
None of the banks may need more capital from the taxpayers - if their bondholders convert debt-to-equity, or otherwise take a haircut on what they are owed. That does not mean the banks are healthy, merely that policymakers finally realize that it is not sustainable for the public to subsidize Bill Gross's portfolio any longer. Also: how reliable is this $34 billion figure if officials from BoA allegedly "sparred" with Treasury officials over this number? Back to the article:
Mr. Alphin noted that the $34 billion figure is well below the $45 billion in capital that the government has already allocated to the bank, although he said the bank has plenty of options to raise the capital on its own.

“There are several ways to deal with this,” Mr. Alphin said. “The company is very healthy.”

Bank executives estimate that the company will generate $30 billion a year in income, once a normal environment returns.
Here's the crux of Geithner's plan: hope something approximating a "normal" environment returns quickly so that banks can earn their way back to health without requiring any further restructuring or government bailouts. This is more or less how the Reagan administration dealt with de facto insolvent banks in 1982. While this approach could work, we won't know for several months. And if banks cannot earn their way back to health, the costs of bailing them out will only rise.

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