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American regulators are “stress testing” banks. What might be the result?
美国监管机构对银行进行“压力测试”，结果该如何？
ASSESSING banks’ capital adequacy has become almost as tortured as trying to work out their exposures to toxic credit. Disclosure is patchy and a plethora of measures exists, with most banks emphasising those that flatter them most. American regulators hope to clean up the mess by imposing stress tests on lenders and requiring them to raise new capital, probably from the government, to plug any shortfalls. Behind the scenes such a test will probably require banks to meet a given, but undisclosed, standard of capital adequacy. It will also involve checking that asset valuations reflect the possibility of a severe recession.
对银行资本充足率进行评估已经变得和搞清这些银行暴露在不良信贷下的风险一样困难。信息的披露零散不全以及大量存在的衡量指标，而多数银行只会着重强调其中那些对自己最有利的信息和指标。通过对放贷人进行压力测试并要求他们筹集资本（可能从政府处取得）来弥补任何短缺的地方，美国监管机构希望更够清理这个乱局。私底下，这种“压力测试”可能会要求银行达到某个给定的（但是没有公开发布的）资本充足率标准。这项测试还将涉及到检验银行资产估值是否对可能出现的严重衰退做出反映。
Judged by tier-one capital, a common measure of adequacy, America’s ten biggest banks by assets appear in reasonable shape. Typically, their ratios of tier-one capital to risk-weighted assets exceed 10% (see chart). However, the quality of their tier-one capital has crumbled. Only about half now consists of tangible common equity, the purest and most flexible form of capital which bears the “first loss” when an asset goes sour. The rest is largely preference stock, much of it government-owned, which is not truly loss-bearing. For example, the dividends on Citigroup’s government preference shares can be deferred but not cancelled, unlike those on common stock. The original Basel rules on capital adequacy sought to limit such “hybrid” capital that sits between equity and debt. But most governments like preference stock because it does not carry votes, and thus avoids nationalisation, and because the more secure dividends protect taxpayers, providing the bank does not go bust.
从一级资本（衡量资本充足率的公用标准）来看，美国最大10家银行的资产状况还不错。普遍上，银行的一级资本同风险加权资产的比率都超过了10%。然而，这些银行一级资本的质量确已大幅降低。目前，这些银行的一级资本大概只有一半是有形的普通股本。普通股本是最纯净、最灵活的一种资本，当某种资产出现问题之时，普通股本（持有人）将最先遭受损失。剩下的资本大多都是多为政府持有的优先股，这种股本并不真正地承担损失。比如说，对政府持有的花旗银行优先股股利的发放可以延迟，但是却不能取消发放。而普通股就不一样。原始的巴塞尔协议对资本充足率的规定是为了限制对介于权益和债务之间的“混合”资本持有。但是大多数政府青睐优先股的原因是这种股本不具备投票权，因此就能够避免国有化。同时另一个原因是，只要银行不倒闭，优先股的股利保障能够对纳税人提供保护。
Markets, however, have not been playing ball. In the past two weeks the share prices and, more scarily, the credit spreads of banks with the lowest-quality tier-one capital have deteriorated sharply. This suggests the new stress test should target “equity tier-one” capital, which strips out preference stock. The simplest way to bolster this is to convert state preference shares into common equity. This has already happened in Britain, at Royal Bank of Scotland, and has been discussed at Citi.
然而，市场还没有很好的参与进来。在过去的两周，股价以及更可怕的是，一级资本质量最差的那些银行的信贷利差已经大幅恶化。这表明，这项新的“压力测试”应当衡量的是去除优先股之后的“一级权益”资本量。解决这一问题最简单的办法是将政府持有的优先股转换为普通股。英国政府已经对苏格兰皇家银行采取了这一做法，同时在花旗银行也讨论过这一策略。
In theory, how much common equity might America’s top ten need? Suppose they had to hit JPMorgan’s equity tier-one ratio of 6.4%. Although the bank has just cut its dividend it still views its balance sheet as a “fortress”, and the safest European banks have similar ratios. Six banks would fail this test. They would need an estimated $107 billion of new common equity in total. The state has already invested about $130 billion of preference stock in these firms. So by switching this into common shares regulators could get the laggards up to the mark. If this were done at market prices, Bank of America and Citi would pass into majority government control. The state would have big minority stakes in PNC Financial Services, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.
理论上，美国最大的十家银行可能将需要多少普通股？应该必须达到摩根大通的6.4%的一级股本率水平。虽然各银行已经削减股利支付，但是他们仍然将资产负债表视作一个“堡垒”，同时最安全的欧洲各银行也处于类似的水平。6家银行将无法通过压力测试。估计这些银行总共将需要1070亿美金的新鲜普通股本。政府已经以优先股的形式向这些银行投入了1300亿美金。所以，通过将这些优先股转换为普通股，政府将占有美国银行以及花旗银行大部分的控制权。政府将在PNC金融服务集团、美国合众银行以及富国银行中占有绝大多数股权。
Unfortunately, anxious to avoid such overt intervention, the government has opted for half-measures. Its desired equity tier-one ratio remains unknown. Any hole will be filled by exotic preference stock that will turn into common equity only as losses materialise. If this fuzziness is not enough to spook investors, the other component of the test, the checking of asset values, may well be. Although the government seems keen to talk up banks’ balance sheets, lenders’ records and the deterioration of the economy mean that further big write-downs cannot be ruled out.
不幸的是，迫切地为了避免这种明显的介入（国有化），政府选择了折中措施。政府要求的一级权益资本率目前仍是个未知数。只有在实际损失发生的时候，才会将独特的优先股转化为普通股来援救任何可能出现的严重状况。如果这种模糊性还不足以吓倒投资者的话，那么对银行资产价值的审查可能足以吓倒一大片。尽管政府似乎迫切地大谈银行资产负债表（状况之好），然而放贷人的（放贷）记录以及经济的恶化则意味着不能排除银行资产负债表在未来大幅缩水的可能。 |
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发表于 2009-3-21 08:10 PM
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