• Tag Archives Debt

  • You’re Likely A Lot Less Prepared For Crisis Than You Realize

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    It seems as if Mother Nature is waking up. Either she’s trying to send humans an important warning, or perhaps she’s just out to kill us all.
    Massive storms across the globe, earthquakes, and collapsing ecosystems all combine to remind us that we are indeed intimately connected to our planet’s natural systems. And that our well-being rests on staying on Mother Nature’s good side.
    Well, Mother Nature has seemed pretty pissed at us of late. Her recent punishments should be taken as a disciplinary wake-up call: It’s time.
    It’s time to prepare, everyone. Way past time.
    And it’s time to recognize that there are multiplying failure points across the many systems we depend on for our way of life — both natural and man-made. For example:
    The wealth gap between the rich and the poor is now grossly obscene and yet still growing wider. Our industrially-farmed soils are being depleted of their nutrients. Species are going extinct every single day. Global oil consumption ticks higher every year. Stock price overvaluation is about the highest it’s ever been. Bonds have never been more expensive (i.e. yields have never been lower) in all of recorded history. Debt levels have never been higher (both globally and, in most cases, locally). The planet’s population continues to explode (7.5 billion today, 10 billion by 2050) while key resources deplete at accelerating rates. Only the foolish, or the seriously self-deluded, would think that these observations and trends will be consequence-free.

    This post was published at PeakProsperity on Friday, September 22, 2017,.

    This entry was posted in Blogosphere Ecology Market Commentary and tagged

  • Pound Flash Crashes After Moody’s Downgrades UK To Aa2

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    In an otherwise boring day, when Theresa May failed to cause any major ripples with her much anticipated Brexit speech, moments ago it was Moody’s turn to stop out countless cable longs, when shortly after the US close, it downgraded the UK from Aa1 to Aa2, outlook stable, causing yet another flash crash in the pound.
    As reason for the unexpected downgrade, Moodys cited “the outlook for the UK’s public finances has weakened significantly since the negative outlook on the Aa1 rating was assigned, with the government’s fiscal consolidation plans increasingly in question and the debt burden expected to continue to rise.”
    It also said that fiscal pressures will be exacerbated by the erosion of the UK’s medium-term economic strength that is likely to result from the manner of its departure from the European Union (EU), and by the increasingly apparent challenges to policy-making given the complexity of Brexit negotiations and associated domestic political dynamics.
    Moody’s now expects growth of just 1% in 2018 following 1.5% this year; doesn’t expect growth to recover to its historic trend rate over coming years. Expects public debt ratio to increase to close to 90% of GDP this year and to reach its peak at close to 93% of GDP only in 2019.
    And so, once again, it was poor sterling longs who having gotten through today largely unscathed, were unceremoniously stopped out following yet another flash crash in all GBP pairs.
    Full release below:

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Blogosphere Economy Fiscal Policies Government Market Commentary and tagged

  • Fed’s Kaplan Makes A Stark Admission: Equilibrium Rate May Be As Low As 0.25%

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    As we have hammered away at for years, “the math doesn’t work”, and it appears The Fed just admitted it.
    In a stunning admission that i) US economic potential is lower than consensus assumes and ii) that the Fed is finally considering the gargantuan US debt load in its interest rate calculations, moments ago the Fed’s Kaplan said something very surprising:
    KAPLAN SAYS NEUTRAL RATE MAY BE AS LOW AS 2.25 PCT, LEAVING FED “NOT AS ACCOMMODATIVE AS PEOPLE THINK” Another way of saying this is that r-star, or the equilibrium real interest rate of the US (calculated as the neutral rate less the Fed’s 2.0% inflation target), is a paltry 0.25%.
    What Kaplan effectively said, is that with slow secular economic growth and ‘fast’ debt growth, there’s only so much higher-rate pain America can take before something snaps and as that debt load soars and economic growth slumbers so the long-term real ‘equilibrium’ interest rate is tamped down. It also would explain why the curve has collapsed as rapidly as it did after the Wednesday FOMC meeting, a move which was a clear collective scream of “policy error” from the market.
    This should not come as a surprise. As we showed back in December 2015, in “The Blindingly Simple Reason Why The Fed Is About To Engage In Policy Error“, when calculating r-star, for a country with total debt to GDP of 350%…

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Banking Blogosphere Economy Fiscal Policies and tagged

  • Gold Bullion Fails to Recover $1300 Even as Dollar Retreats Post-Fed, Kim + Trump Trade Insults

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Gold bullion rallied almost $10 per ounce on Friday from yesterday’s 4-week lows against the Dollar but failed to recover what analysts called the “key pivot” of $1300 despite claims of safe-haven buying after Pyongyang threatened to test a nuclear bomb over the Pacific Ocean.
    The Yen rose faster versus the Dollar, erasing last week’s 0.7% gain in gold for Japanese investors, as Kim Jong-un – leader of the regime in neighboring North Korea – called US President Trump “deranged”, and Trump called Kim a “madman”.
    “Chinese interest was once again prevalent to underpin the early session bid,” says one Asian bullion desk.
    Ratings agency S&P today downgraded China‘s sovereign debt one notch to A+, saying that credit growth remains strong and “deleveraging is likely to be [too] gradual.”
    This was the ” wrong decision” Beijing’s Finance Ministry replied.
    Chinese gold premiums, over and above the global reference rate of London prices, held Friday at $7 per ounce, still below the typical incentive for new imports of $9-10 per ounce.
    After India’s gold bullion imports tripled from a year ago to $15 billion-worth in April-August, “We don’t favor a blanket restriction on gold imports,” the Economic Times today quotes a Commerce Department official, “[because] it may involve disputes in the World Trade Organisation.”

    This post was published at FinancialSense on 09/22/2017.

    This entry was posted in Economy Energy Gold Market Commentary Precious Metals and tagged

  • There’s a Bubble in New York City Taxi Medallions

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    It’s as old as time: taking on debt to fund a sure thing. Be it houses, stocks, cryptocurrencies, tulip bulbs or taxi medallions. Winnie Hu tells the current tale of woe brilliantly for The New York Times. Big city taxi medallions were once considered to be good as gold. Ms. Hu writes,
    Sohan Gill once saw his medallion as such a good investment – ‘better than a house’ – that his wife bought two more in 2001. Now they cannot find enough drivers for the cabs because business is so bad. And Mr. Gill, 63, who had retired from driving, had to go back on the road. ‘How many more years am I going to drive to take care of these medallions?’ he asked.
    That sounds so much like Las Vegas 2005. Why own one house? Buy two more. Now retirement is put on hold.
    A full blown medallion crash is unraveling in New York City as Ms. Hu explains.
    Since 2015, a total of 85 medallions have been sold as part of foreclosure proceedings, according to city records. In August alone, 12 of the 21 medallion sales were part of foreclosures; the prices of all the sales ranged from $150,000 to $450,000 per medallion.
    A medallion being essentially a license to drive a cab, $150,000 to $450,000 doesn’t seem like the bottom, however at the peak. 2014, a medallion went for $1.3 million. By the way, Uber was founded in 2009, but New York cab owners either didn’t get the memo, or didn’t understand the implications.

    This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on Sept 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Gold Precious Metals and tagged

  • Bill Blain: How To Catch Rabies In The Junk Bond Market

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    From Bill Blain of Mint Partners
    Blain’s Morning Porridge – How to catch rabies in the Junk Bond Market
    I’m sure everyone has been following the Toy R Us meltdown in the bond market. Alongside chapter 11 bankruptcy, its bonds have crashed from 96 to 18% through the month. Have we seen this before? Of course you have. Happens all the time. But, Blain’s Market Mantra No 3 reminds us: ‘Markets have no Memory. Buyers have even less.’
    There are a number of things that worry me.
    First is the market doesn’t seem to think Toy R Us is symptomatic of wider problems across the whole hi-yield and LBO sector. According to some I’ve spoken to, Toys R Us is one of few and even the ‘only’ company caught in a debt trap – oh no it isn’t! Profit of about $500mm per annum covering debt service costs of, say, about $500 per annum. FFS! As the FT comments: the capital structure is ‘extremely complicated’ leading to doubts on what is and isn’t senior or subordinated to what. It’s what we call messy.

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Blogosphere Economy and tagged

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise to Lay Off 10% of its Staff

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Master of share-buybacks and revenue-shrinkage does what it does best.
    Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which blew nearly $2 billion on debt-funded share buybacks over the three quarters of its fiscal year 2017, even as revenues fell 7%, will do the only other thing that, in addition to share buybacks and revenue-shrinkage, it has been doing really well for years since it was still the full-blown Hewlett-Packard: Mass layoffs.
    The company will ax about 10% of its employees. That would amount to at least 5,000 workers of its workforce of about 52,000. The cuts will hit employees, including managers, in the US and abroad, ‘people familiar with the matter’ told Bloomberg.
    CEO Meg Whitman has been redoing the company since she took the job in 2011, after she lost out in her efforts to become governor of California. At the time, Hewlett-Packard, as it was still called, had 350,000 employees. After serial layoffs came some big divestitures: PCs, printers, business services, and some software units had to go. This includes the largest breakup in US corporate history, spinning off the PC and printer division to create two companies, her HPE and the PC business, HP Inc.

    This post was published at Wolf Street by Wolf Richter ‘ Sep 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Blogosphere Economy Market Commentary and tagged

  • Pensions and Debt Time Bomb In UK: 1 Trillion Crisis Looms

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    – 1 trillion crisis looms as pensions deficit and consumer loans snowball out of control
    – UK pensions deficit soared by 100B to 710B, last month
    – 200B unsecured consumer credit ‘time bomb’ warn FCA
    – 8.3 million people in UK with debt problems
    – 2.2 million people in UK are in financial distress
    – ‘President Trump land’ there is a savings gap of $70 trillion
    – Global problem as pensions gap of developed countries growing by $28B per day
    Editor: Mark O’Byrne
    ***
    There is a 1 trillion debt time bomb hanging over the United Kingdom. We are nearing the end of the timebomb’s long fuse and it looks set to explode in the coming months.
    No one knows how to diffuse the 1 trillion bomb and who should be taking responsibility. It is made up of two major components.
    710 billion is the terrifying size of the UK pensions deficit 200 billion is the amount of dynamite in the consumer credit time bomb How did the sovereign nation that is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland get itself so deep in the red?
    This is not a problem that is bore only by the Brits. In the rest of the developed world a $70 trillion pensions deficit hangs heavy.

    This post was published at Gold Core on September 22, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Banking Economy Market Commentary and tagged

  • The Demise of the Dollar: Don’t Hold Your Breath

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    So let’s look at currency flows, reserves and debt.
    De-dollarization is often equated with the demise of the dollar, but this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the currency markets. The demise of the U. S. dollar has been a staple of the financial media for decades. The latest buzzword making the rounds is de-dollarization, which describes the move away from USD in global payments
    Look, I get it: the U. S. dollar arouses emotions because it’s widely seen as one of the more potent tools of U. S. hegemony. Lots of people are hoping for the demise of the dollar, for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the actual flow of currencies or the role of currencies in the global economy and foreign exchange (FX) markets.
    So there is a large built-in audience for any claim that the dollar is on its deathbed.
    I understand the emotional appeal of this, but investors and traders can’t afford to make decisions on the emotional appeal of superficial claims–not just in the FX markets, but in any markets.
    So let’s ground the discussion of the demise of the USD in some basic fundamentals. Now would be a good time to refill your beverage/drip-bag because we’re going to cover some dynamics that require both emotional detachment and focus.

    This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on SEPTEMBER 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Banking Economy Market Commentary and tagged

  • Toys R Us Bankruptcy: It’s Not All About Amazon

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, a wicked head-shot to a retail sector that’s been reeling for months.
    The TRU filing ranks as the second-largest US retail bankruptcy ever, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.
    Toys R Us had $6.6 billion in assets at the time of filing. Only Kmart was bigger. It had $16.3 billion in assets when it went bankrupt in 2002. Crushing debt pulled the giant toy seller under. According to a Bloomberg report, the company has piled up more than $5 billion in debt. Toys R Us reportedly pays more than $400 million a year on debt service alone.
    The company says it plans to continue operating and secured a$3.1 billion operating loan to stabilize operations.
    This is the biggest and perhaps most visible retail bankruptcy of the year, but Toys R Us is far from alone. To say the retail sector is struggling would be an understatement of epic proportions. Bloomberg summed up the retail landscape pretty succinctly.

    This post was published at Schiffgold on SEPTEMBER 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Economy Market Commentary and tagged

  • Bill Blain: “Let’s Pretend”

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Blain’s Morning Porridge – Fed Acts, ECB Smoking – but what?
    The Fed acts. Normalisation. Hints of a rate rise in December, confirmation of further ‘data-dependent’ hikes to come next year, and ending the reinvestment of QE income. Exactly as expected – although some say three hikes in 2018 is a bit hostage to the global economy. The effect: Dollar up. Bonds down. Record Stocks. Yellen threw the bond market a crumb when she reminded us low inflation will require a ‘response.’
    Relax. US markets will sweat, but not break. Dollar ascendant.. Yen collapses.. What about Yoorp?
    Not quite as simples in Europe.
    I’m indebted to my colleague Kevin Humphreys on BGC’s Money Market desk for pointing out yet another Northern European central banker with a smug self-satisfied smile on his face this morning.
    Klass Knot (Holland) has been telling us the European reflationary environment is improving to the extent where the tail risk of a deflationary spiral is no longer imminent. He said ‘robust’ economic developments have improved confidence inflation will rise in line with the ECB’s mandated aims. He added the appreciation of the Euro reflects an improving assessment of the EU’s economic success. And, he concludes the ECB should focus on the more important structural and institutional issues facing Europe, rather than the short-term stabilisation and crisis management – WHICH ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Blogosphere Economy Fiscal Policies and tagged

  • Gold Investment ‘Compelling’ As Fed May ‘Kill The Business Cycle’

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Gold Investment ‘Compelling’ As Fed Likely To Create Next Recession
    – Is the Fed about to kill the business cycle?
    – 16 out of 19 rate-hike cycles in past 100 years ended in recession
    – Total global debt at all time high – see chart
    – Global debt is 327% of world GDP – ticking timebomb…
    – Gold has beaten the market (S&P 500) so far this century
    – Safe haven demand to increase on debt and equity risk
    – Gold looks very cheap compared to overbought markets
    – Important to diversify into safe haven gold now
    ***
    by Frank Holmes via Gold.org
    Global debt levels have reached unprecedented levels, pension deficits are rising and the US interest rate cycle is on the turn. Frank Holmes, chief executive of highly regarded investment management group US Global Investors, believes that investing in gold is a logical response to current, unnerving conditions.
    For centuries, investors and savers have depended on gold in times of economic and political strife, and its investment case right now is as compelling as it’s ever been.

    This post was published at Gold Core on September 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Banking Economy Fiscal Policies Gold Market Commentary Precious Metals Trading Strategies and tagged

  • S&P Downgrades China To A+ From AA- Due To Soaring Debt Growth

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Four months after Moody’s downgraded China to A1 from Aa3, unwittingly launching a startling surge in the Yuan as Beijing set forth to “prove” just how “stable” China truly is through its nationalized capital markets, moments ago S&P followed suit when the rating agency also downgraded China from AA- to A+ for the first time since 1999 citing risks from soaring debt growth, less than a month before the most important congress for Chiina’s communist leadership in the past five years is set to take place. In addition to cutting the sovereign rating by one notch, S&P analysts also lowered their rating on three foreign banks that primarily operate in China, saying HSBC China, Hang Seng China and DBS Bank China Ltd. are unlikely to avoid default should the nation default on its sovereign debt. Following the downgrade, S&P revised its outlook to stable from negative.
    ‘China’s prolonged period of strong credit growth has increased its economic and financial risks,’ S&P said. ‘Since 2009, claims by depository institutions on the resident nongovernment sector have increased rapidly. The increases have often been above the rate of income growth. Although this credit growth had contributed to strong real GDP growth and higher asset prices, we believe it has also diminished financial stability to some extent.”
    According to commentators, the second downgrade of China this year represents ebbing international confidence China can strike a balance between maintaining economic growth and cleaning up its financial sector, Bloomberg reported. The move may also be uncomfortable for Communist Party officials, who are just weeks away from their twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle.
    The cut will ‘have a relatively big impact on Chinese enterprises since corporate ratings can’t be higher than the sovereign rating,’ said Xia Le, an economist at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA in Hong Kong. ‘It will affect corporate financing.’
    ‘The market has already speculated S&P may cut soon after Moody’s downgraded,’ said Tommy Xie, an economist at OCBC Bank in Singapore. ‘This isn’t so surprising.’

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Blogosphere Economy Government and tagged

  • Is Identity Politics Brewing a Holocaust?

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Signs of American collapse are everywhere. Apparently no one notices. The world continues to vote with the US in the UN. When even Russia and China serve as handmaidens to US foreign policy by voting with Washington against North Korea, it appears that the image of America as the exceptional and indispensable country is a propaganda success even among Washington’s most threatened enemies. When Russia and China follow Washington’s lead, it shows the world that there is no alternative to Washington’s leadership.
    A country with a $20 trillion public debt, an even larger private debt, a work force drowning in debt and employed in third world lowly paid domestic services, a stock market pumped up beyond all reason by Federal Reserve liquidity and companies using their profits to repurchase their own stock, a military that’s been tied down for 16 years by a few lightly armed Muslims, a propaganda ministry instead of a media with public ignorance the consequence, and with a total collapse of morality in public and private institutions along with the disappearance of courage, is nevertheless able to make the entire world dance to its tune. Washington is the Wizard of Oz.
    Washington in the past 16 years has destroyed in whole or part seven countries, murdering, maiming, orphaning, widowing, and displacing millions of peoples. Yet Washington still presents itself as the great defender of human rights, democracy, and all that is good. The American people have voiced few words of protest against the massive crimes against humanity committed by ‘their’ government.

    This post was published at Paul Craig Roberts on September 20, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Controlled Media Economy Fiscal Policies Geopolitics Government Market Commentary Politics Religion Special Interests and tagged

  • Catalonia Independence Vote October 1st

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    The Spanish government refuses to listen to anything from Catalonia and announced it would intervene in Catalonia’s finances to ensure that ‘not one euro’ of public money was used to fund the ‘illegal’ vote. Meanwhile, the Spanish police arrested 13 people in the region of Catalonia and Madrid for their alleged involvement in planning a vote to secede from Spain. This is clearly demonstrating that the Spanish government is reverting to its old fascist ways for it is the boldest move yet by Spanish authorities to stop the separatist movement.
    It was 1931 when the nations defaulted on their debts that saw Estat Catal and other parties began to form Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia)(ERC). The ERC won a dramatic victory in the municipal elections that year and this is when we must regard the first major step in the separatics movement.

    This post was published at Armstrong Economics on Sep 21, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Economy Government Market Commentary Politics and tagged

  • Loving Our Debt-Serfdom: Our Neofeudal Status Quo

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Democracy (i.e. political influence) and ownership of productive assets are the exclusive domains of the New Aristocracy. I have often used the words neoliberal, neocolonial and neofeudal to describe our socio-economic-political status quo. Here are my shorthand descriptions of each term: 1. Neoliberal: the commoditization / financialization of every asset, input (such as labor) and output of the economy; the privatization of the public commons, and the maximizing of private profits while costs and losses are socialized, i.e. transferred to the taxpayers. 2. Neocolonial: the exploitation of the domestic populace using the same debt-servitude model used to subjugate, control and extract profits from overseas populations. 3. Neofeudal: the indenturing of the workforce via debt and financial repression to a new Aristocracy; the disempowerment of the workforce into powerless debt-serfs. Neofeudalism is a subtle control structure that is invisible to those who buy into the Mainstream Media portrayal of our society and economy. This portrayal includes an apparent contradiction: America is a meritocracy–the best and brightest rise to the top, if they have pluck and work hard– and America is all about identity politics: whomever doesn’t make it is a victim of bias.

    This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Controlled Media Economy Fiscal Policies Politics and tagged

  • Yet Again?

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    This week’s Outside the Box is from one of my favorite writers and analysts. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital is simply an investing legend. He writes several ‘memos’ a year on the world of investing, and I put quotes around the word memos because they are typically longer than what you would think of as a memo. This week’s selection is reduced from the full memo, which you can see here.
    (And for those who are wondering what I omitted, Howard did a long section on Bitcoin that I had to edit out. If you’re interested, click on the link above, go down about halfway, and you’ll find that section.)
    Oaktree Capital, which is a $100 billion hedge fund, runs the largest distressed debt fund in the world, according to its wiki. Distressed-debt hedge funds are among my favorite investment styles. Where others see risk, great distressed investors simply say let’s lower the valuation of the asset until we take out the risk. It’s all about the market finding its own level. And the really good funds can offer some quite pleasurable investments noncorrelated to market returns. The problem is getting access to them. Oh well. More from the wiki:

    This post was published at Mauldin Economics on SEPTEMBER 20, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Blogosphere Crypto Currency Market Commentary Politics and tagged

  • New Survey Shows Just How Hard It Is To Make Ends Meet: ‘Half Of People Need Credit Cards Just To Make It To Their Next Payday’

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    A new survey was done in the United Kingdom and it shows just how hard it is for young people to survive paycheck to paycheck. Almost half of those surveyed admitted to needing credit to make ends meet until they get paid again.
    More than half of young women have to borrow to make their funds last to the end of the month, highlighting the impact of stagnating wages, insecure work, and rising prices like taxation on millennials. A survey of 4,000 people aged 18-30 shows that 51% of young women and 45% of young men regularly use credit to stretch their finances until payday. The report also found that a quarter of these young people in the UK are constantly in debt.
    When asked how they borrow to make ends meet, one in five claimed they used overdraft credit or borrowed from family members. The next most common form of borrowing was the use of credit cards. The Young Women’s Trust, which commissioned the representative sample of young people, said many of those questioned in the survey also worked extra hours or skipped meals to make their cash stretch to the end of the month.
    The survey was conducted after a growing number of people began asking for help from debt charities with personal debts and monthly bills.

    This post was published at shtfplan on September 20th, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Blogosphere Economy and tagged

  • How Many of 2017’s Retail Bankruptcies Were Caused by Private-Equity’s Greed?

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, there have been 35 retail bankruptcies this year, almost double the 18 retail bankruptcies of last year. The filing by Toys ‘R’ Us this week was the latest.
    What many of these retailers have in common is that they were taken private in leveraged buyouts (LBOs) by private equity (PE) firms. Toys ‘R’ Us, Payless ShoeSource, The Limited, Wet Seal, Gymboree Corp., rue21, and True Religion Apparel were all LBOs. Gander Mountain can also be included in this list if you reach back to its 1984 LBO. Far too many LBOs are simply asset stripping operations by Wall Street vultures who load the company with enormous debt, then asset strip the cash from the company by paying themselves obscene special dividends and management fees.
    On June 12 of this year, the official committee of unsecured creditors to Payless, consisting primarily of Payless stores’ landlords and vendors, alleged in a filing in U. S. bankruptcy court that the private equity firms involved in the Payless LBO in 2012, Golden Gate Capital and Blum Capital, had ‘siphoned over $400 million out of Payless. Lawyers for the unsecured creditors wrote the following in their objection:
    ‘The Sponsor Group [Golden Gate Capital and Blum Capital] acquired the Debtors [Payless, et al] in October 2012 through a leveraged buyout (the ‘2012 LBO’) which increased the Debtors’ debt from approximately $125 million as of the fiscal year end immediately prior to the leveraged buyout to approximately $400 million. After the 2012 LBO, the Sponsor group siphoned over $400 million out of the Debtors…

    This post was published at Wall Street On Parade on September 20, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Economy Government Market Commentary and tagged

  • Meanwhile, The “Next Big Short” Is Quietly Blowing Up

    Posted on by Jon Comment

    Back in March, when we detailed the ongoing catastrophic deterioration in the US retail sector, manifesting itself in empty malls, mass store closures, soaring layoffs and growing bankruptcies – demonstrated most vividly by the overnight bankruptcy of Toys “R” Us, the second largest retail bankruptcy in US history after K-Mart – we said that “just like 10 years ago, when the “big short” was putting on the RMBX trade, and to a smaller extent, its cousin the CMBX, so now too some are starting to short CMBS through the CMBX, a CDS index which tracks the values of bonds backed by various commercial properties. They are betting against securities backed by malls in weaker locations where stores could close in quick succession, triggering debt defaults.”
    We dubbed this retail short via CMBX the next “Big Short” trade, and others promptly followed.
    In a subsequent post just a few days later, we underscored why the correct way to short the great retail collapse was not so much through stocks, but CMBX:
    The trade, as we discussed before, is not so much shorting the equities where a persistent threat of a short squeeze has burned the bears on more than one occasion, but going long default risk via CMBX or otherwise shorting the CMBS complex. Based on fundamentals, the trade indeed appears justified: Sold in 2012, the mortgage bonds have a higher concentration of loans to regional malls and shopping centers than similar securities issued since the financial crisis. And because of the way CMBS are structured, the BBB- and BB rated notes are the first to suffer losses when underlying loans go belly up.

    This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 19, 2017.

    This entry was posted in Alternative Media Banking Blogosphere Economy Real Estate and tagged