Book Value

In a must read Op Ed, Bloomberg's Jon Weil takes another long hard look at the balance sheet of the most undercapitalized bank in America (thank would be Bank of America) courtesy of the worst M&A transaction in history, namely its purchase of Countrywide, observes what everyone, even John Paulson now knows, that due to trading at half its book value nobody in the market gives even remote credit to the bank's asset "marks", and concludes that this organization, courtesy of an extremely lax regulatory and audit structure, which continues to allow it to mark any assets at whatever price it desires, could well be the next AIG: "There’s more
at stake here, however, than whether Bank of America’s shares
are a “buy” or a “sell.” The main thing the rest of us care about is the continuing
menace this company and others like it pose to the financial
system, knowing we never should have let ourselves be put in the
position where a collapse in confidence at a single bank could
wreak havoc on the world’s economy. Here we are again, though.
Curse the geniuses who brought us this madness." Indeed: once again, right before our eyes, day after day we allow various higher status quo-embedded individuals to take advantage of the gullible public by misrepresenting the massive risk that the left side of BAC's balance sheet represents, which can have only one conclusion: the same epic implosion that brought down AIG once the market reality caught up the with book myth. Yet in the case of AIG unbridled risk-taking and book mismarking we can at least put the blame on one person: the man at the heart of AIG FP, Joe Cassano, whose reckless bets nearly brought down capitalism. So our question is: is there someone at or affiliated with Bank of America that could soon double as a Joe Cassano for the 2010s? We have one suggestion (although certainly not exhaustive): Brian Lin of RRMS Advisors.

Another horrendous quarter for Bank of America. While the company reported an adjusted EPS of $0.33 which shockingly came at the "at the high end of the prior guidance on June 29, 2011 when the company said net income excluding mortgage items and other selected items would be between $0.28 and $0.33 per share" the truth is that of the $5.6 billion in adjusted pretax net income, $3.3 billion was the result of credit loss releases. In other words 59% of the firm's "adjusted EPS" came from an accounting treatment and the CFO's interpretation of improving credit trends. As for the balance: another $1.5 billion came from a write-down in Mortgage Servicing Rights or another accounting gimmick. So take away the reserve release and MSRs, and one gets an EPS number that is 86% lower than the disclosed or about $0.05. The problem is that on an andjusted basis, the EPS was ($0.90) or a loss of $12.6 billion pre tax, driven by the previously disclosed settlements and a surge in provisions for Rep and Warranty settlements to $14 billion. Keep in mind this number will be far, far higher when all the Countrywide litigation is said and done. After all, the firm itself said that  the "Estimated range of possible loss related to non-GSE representations and warranties exposure could be up to $5B over existing accruals at June 30, 2011. This estimate does not include reasonably possible litigation losses." So what about litigation losses? Well at $1.9 billion this was a huge surge from the $0.8 billion in Q1 and $0.6 billion Q4 2010. This number will also only go up as everyone and the kitchen sink sues Bank of America. And while one can play accounting games to paint the EPS tape, the cash that leaves the company is all too real: the firm's Common Equity Ratio plunged from 9.42% in Q1 to 9.09% in Q2, the lowest since Q2 2010, and the result was a plunge in the firm's (very much meaningless courtesy of Mark to Market being illegal - thank you FASB) Book Value per Share to $20.29: the lowest in well... ever since the firm's bailout by the US taxpayer.

Back in December, when noting the first material blow out in PIIGS spreads following the first Greek bailout 6 months earlier, we touched upon Italy, and specifically looked at a way to best play the coming shift in Eurozone contagion from the periphery to the core, coming up with one unique corporate name. Back then we said: "We all know what has happened to Italian bond prices in the past weeks: as of today, Bund spreads have just hit a fresh all time high. But all this is irrelevant since the bank must have a capital buffer to accommodate the losses. After all, what idiot would run a company with almost €300 billion in Euro-facing bond exposure and not factor for deterioration in risk after the events of May... Well the ASSGEN CEO may be just such an idiot. The company's balance sheet as of 9/30 discloses that the firm had a mere €10 billion in tangible capital (excluding €10.7 billion in intangible assets). So let's recap: €262 billion in Euro bonds on.... €10 billion in tangible equity! A 26x leverage on what is promptly becoming the most impaired asset class in the world." In a nutshell, Assecurazioni Generali, one of Italy's largest insurers, is a highly levered windsock for Italian and other PIIGS stress, and better yet, can be played in either equity or CDS. Now that the European bond vigilantes are once again looking beyond Greece and focusing particularly on Italy (especially based on recent Sigma X trading), none other than JP Morgan (which just cut its estimates on GASI.MI, a very appropriate equity ticker) validates the thesis that Generali (or ASSGEN per its memorable corporate/CDS ticker) is the best proxy for contagion: "Generali is one of the most sensitive stocks to both the sovereign debt crisis and the implications for the financial sector through both its government, corporate and equity investment portfolios...Generali’s sovereign exposure is mainly concentrated in Europe with Italy accounting for the largest share (37%; home market bias)."

From the Telegraph (UK): Moves by [UK] stronger banks to cut back their lending to weaker [EU] banks is reminiscent of the build-up to the financial crisis in 2008, when the refusal of banks to lend to one another led to a seizing-up of the markets that eventually led to the collapse of several major banks and taxpayer bail-outs of many more.

This is exactly what I've been crowing about for 2 years. It's actually much worse than Lehman... Much Worse!

Don’t be fooled by the IMF’s announcement that Greece will get a new round of money. This bailout is merely to give a couple of months for the parties to seriously negotiate what haircuts and debt extensions investors need to take in Greece, and Ireland and Portugal. Virtually all the comments made by the parties involved fit in with the view that we are now in a phase where people are negotiating how much they will write off and what else they will do. Almost none of the comments indicate that anyone is really trying to put together a plan that is going kick the can down the road for a long time. I am fading this rally as only the most optimistic investor can believe that this problem doesn’t lead to real default/restructuring with haircuts in the next couple of months.

Last week I used the analogy of a shotgun wedding to describe how the bailout was being forced upon the Greek people. Maybe, after the events of this weekend, I wasn’t being harsh enough in my choice of analogy. As I continue to digest the news and various opinions, I still reach the same conclusion. Default or restructuring is the most logical outcome and should occur sooner than later. I believe that the image of the IMF has been tainted and it will make it more difficult for the Greek people to accept a deal from them, unless the terms are incredibly favorable. I’ve also listed several of the arguments most commonly used to encourage Greece to delay restructuring, and point out the flaws in each of them.

Goldman has released earnings which appear to be substantially better than Street forecasts of $0.81 in EPS and $10.21 billion in revenue. The firm reported earnings of $1.56 (though this is still a sizable drom from the $5.59 a year earlier. Revenues came at $11.894 billion beating expectations but less than the $12.775 billion a year prior. The GS EPS was impacted by $1.64 billion in Berkshire dividend related charges, absent which EPS would have been $4.38. Goldman reported $5.233 billion in operating expenses, on total staff of 35,400 (a drop of 300 from last quarter). Annualizing the firm's Compensation and benefits line of $5,233 implies Goldman is runrating to pay its employees an average of $591,299/employee. Lastly, and perhaps just as importantly, the bank notes it lowered its total VaR from 120 to 113 sequentially (and down from 161 a year prior). Equity VaR in particular was curious as it plunged by nearly half from a year earlier: from 88 to 49. Oddly, as most other banks are relevering their risk taking activities, Goldman is actively curbing them.

Summary of results:

• Citi Q1 revenue USD 19.7bln vs. Exp. USD 20.54bln; this is a whopping $5.7 billion drop from the $25.4 billion in Q1 2010. So much for revenue growth.
• Q1 EPS USD 0.10 vs. Exp. USD 0.09
• Q1 tier 1 capital ratio 13.3%
• Q1 tier 1 common equity ratio 11.3%
• Q1 net credit losses declined 25%
• Q1 Loan Loss Allowance drops to $36.6 billion from $48.7 billion year over year.
• Total deposits $865.9 billion compared $827.9 billion a year prior
  
• And the kicker: Q1 reserve release was $(3.37) billion on $4.2 billion profit from continuing operations. In other words, absent accounting gimmickry the company would barely have been profitable
  

Bank of America continues crawling along the razor's edge, with the biggest threat to its continued business model: ongoing legacy CFC fraud being largely unprovisioned for. In the just released earnings presentation, we learn that the bank provisioned only $1 billion for its ongoing Reps and Warranties liability, after charging off a minuscule $238 million - the lowest in over a year, bringing its total liability accrual to $6.2 billion. Yet over the same period total outstanding claims by counterparty surged by nearly 30%, from $10.7 billion to $13.6 billion, primarily due to GSEs, although the steady putback rise in monoline GSE claims is relentless (and appears to have gotten to the bank considering the just announced Assured Guaranty settlement, see below). Total outstanding claims at the end of Q1 totalled $13.6 billion. Also someone please explain to us how Merrill Lynch (see footnote
2) is one of the parties responsible for filing new claims against its
parent and rescuer Bank of America. As for a real world example of just what the real cost of these
liabilities is in a full discharge scenario, we have the just announce
settlement with Assured Guaranty which cost the company $1.1 billion to
settle loss-sharing reinsurance arrangement on 21 first
lien RMBS transactions totalling $4.8 billion net par. In other
words the settlements that are about to be announce with MBIA and other
monolines could possibly be in the double digits, crushing BAC's earnings in whatever quarter they are announced.

Just as JP Morgan, Bank of America takes accounting manipulation to the next degree and lowers its credit loss provision to $3.8 billion, down $6.0 billion from a year earlier, and $2.3 billion from Q4, even though the actual amount of charge offs sequentially barely declined from $6.7 billion to $6.0 billion. "The provision for credit losses was $3.8 billion, which was $6.0 billion lower than the same period a year earlier. The provision was lower than net charge-offs, resulting in a $2.2 billion reduction in the allowance for loan and lease losses, including the reserve for unfunded commitments, in the first quarter of 2011 (net of reserve additions of $1.6 billion related to consumer-purchased credit-impaired portfolios as noted below). This compares with a $1.0 billion reduction in the first quarter of 2010." Even so, the company still was unable to goal seek its EPS consensus of $0.26, coming in at $0.17. Without this accounting gimmick, BAC would have had a sizable loss in Q1.

David Stockman concludes his two part series on Crony Capitalism (part one here) with this scathing take down of the Federal Reserve. Hopefully this is nothing new to anyone at this point... "The destructive result of the Federal Reserve’s earlier housing and consumer credit bubble became the excuse for embracing a destructive zero interest rate policy which is self-evidently fueling even more destruction. This destruction is namely, the exploitation of middle class savers; the current severe food and energy squeeze on lower income households; the illusion in Washington that Uncle Sam can comfortably manage $14 trillion in debt because the interest carry is close enough to zero for government purposes; and the next round of bursting bubbles building up among the risk asset classes... So in the present circumstances, ZIRP and QE2 amount to a monetary Hail Mary. There is no monetary tradition whatsoever that says the way back to U.S. economic health and sustainable growth is through herding Grandma into junk bonds and speculators into the Russell 2000."

As destructive as the Japanese tsunami has been, it may have left some investment pearls in its wake. It has suddenly made available some of the country’s best of breed, world beating companies available at throw away prices. But this is going to be an investment for longer term money, not a trade, as some patients may be required for a payday.

During the Great Recession plenty of money was made betting against the consumer. In 2010, the number of non-business bankruptcy filings grew by 8.8% to 1.5 million. While this number may seem high, it is significantly lower than the 31.5% jump in 2009. In the shadow of bankruptcy lead defaults lies Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRAA). With a market cap of $1.4 billion, PRAA is the leading receivables management company. Read more to see how you can cash in on their ability to collect.

A systematic plan to create the illusion of stability and provide no-risk profits to the mega-Wall Street banks was implemented in early 2009 and continues today. The plan was developed by Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and the CEOs of the criminal Wall Street banking syndicate. The plan has been enabled by the FASB, SEC, IRS, FDIC and corrupt politicians in Washington D.C. This master plan has funneled hundreds of billions from taxpayers to the banks that created the greatest financial collapse in world history. The authorities had a choice. This country has bankruptcy laws. The criminally negligent Wall Street banks could have been liquidated in an orderly bankruptcy. Their good assets could have been sold off to banks that did not take their extreme greed based risks. Bond holders and stockholders would have been wiped out. Today, we would have a balanced banking system, with no Too Big To Fail institutions. Instead, the years of placing their cronies within governmental agencies and buying off politicians paid big dividends for Wall Street. Their return on investment has been fantastic.

What are the chances of another banking crisis, this time emanating from Europe? Let me count the ways, but not using Goldman's math of course.