Remunerazione degli amministratori esecutivi

Il dibattito sulle remunerazioni degli esecutivi è sempre più incandescente.

Tim Geithner in un recente intervento ha posto l'accento sulla necessità di arginare gli eccessi e ha proposto in tal senso che i comitati remunerazione siano composti unicamente da amministratori indipendenti, a cui sia concessa la facoltà di avvalersi di esperti esterni - a spese della società - per valutare i termini delle remunerazioni agli esecutivi.

La proposta è certamente condivisibile e dovrebbe essere presa in considerazione da Borsa Italiana nella prossima edizione del Codice di Autodisciplina.

Attualmente il Codice di Autodisciplina dispone che il comitato remunerazione sia composto da non esecutivi, la maggioranza dei quali sia indipendente.

Mentre, per il futuro, dovrebbe essere previsto che il comitato sia composto unicamente da indipendenti, con possibilità per il comitato stesso di farsi assistere da esperti del settore al fine di verificare se la remunerazione degli esecutivi sia eccessiva o meno.

La proposta Schumer sulla corporate governance: un placebo?

Alcuni giorni orsono il Sen Schumer (NY) ha presentato lo Shareholder Bill of Rights Act of 2009 che, inter alia, prevede:(1) l'eliminazione dei staggered boards per le quotate, (2) l'obbligo di sottoppore al voto assembleare (non vincolante) le remunerazioni degli esecutivi e i golden parachutes, (3) l'attribuzione della presidenza del cda a un indipendente nelle quotate; (4) la costituzione obbligatoria di un comitato rischi in seno al cda composto unicamente da indipendenti “which shall be responsible for the establishment and evaluation of the risk management practices of the issuer».

La presenza di un comitato rischi sembra però essere un mero placebo, come nota giustamente il Prof. Steven Davidoff, il quale rileva: «The Schumer bill seems to assume that independent directors with less familiarity than management can understand the risks associated with a company. It also assumes that every company, including a Tootsie Pop factory as well as a sophisticated financial institution, requires a risk committee.

Yet in many cases, management is not certain of the risk associated with their operations. How do we expect a part-time board to understand and manage this risk? Is this really necessary, or is it a form of false comfort and insurance?».

German banks loaded with 816 billion in toxic paper

On Friday, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) leaked a bombshell - a confidential report by Bafin, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, found that German banks were sitting on over 800 billion euros in toxic assets. Just three months ago, the reports coming out suggested the problem was only half as large, 400 billion euros.

This new account has been all over the news in Germany because Germans are becoming quite frightened about the health of their banking system and are angry because the German economy was largely absent from the bubbles of the past decade. Germans are beginning to ask quite openly why banks like Commerzbank and the state-owned land banks as well as institutions like Hypo Real Estate are being rescued with taxpayer money. This is a debate now ongoing in a number of countries, the U.S., the U.K. and Ireland most prominent among them. In an election year in Germany, this issue is sure to have an impact.

Credit Writedowns

Money for Nothing

By PAUL KRUGMAN

On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their immense wealth through their contributions to society.

Soon after that article was printed, the financial edifice Mr. Weill took credit for helping to build collapsed, inflicting immense collateral damage in the process. Even if we manage to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, the world economy will take years to recover from this crisis.

All of which explains why we should be disturbed by an article in Sunday’s Times reporting that pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again — right back up to 2007 levels.

Why is this disturbing? Let me count the ways.

First, there’s no longer any reason to believe that the wizards of Wall Street actually contribute anything positive to society, let alone enough to justify those humongous paychecks.

Remember that the gilded Wall Street of 2007 was a fairly new phenomenon. From the 1930s until around 1980 banking was a staid, rather boring business that paid no better, on average, than other industries, yet kept the economy’s wheels turning.

So why did some bankers suddenly begin making vast fortunes? It was, we were told, a reward for their creativity — for financial innovation. At this point, however, it’s hard to think of any major recent financial innovations that actually aided society, as opposed to being new, improved ways to blow bubbles, evade regulations and implement de facto Ponzi schemes.

Consider a recent speech by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, in which he tried to defend financial innovation. His examples of “good” financial innovations were (1) credit cards — not exactly a new idea; (2) overdraft protection; and (3) subprime mortgages. (I am not making this up.) These were the things for which bankers got paid the big bucks?

Still, you might argue that we have a free-market economy, and it’s up to the private sector to decide how much its employees are worth. But this brings me to my second point: Wall Street is no longer, in any real sense, part of the private sector. It’s a ward of the state, every bit as dependent on government aid as recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a k a “welfare.”

I’m not just talking about the $600 billion or so already committed under the TARP. There are also the huge credit lines extended by the Federal Reserve; large-scale lending by Federal Home Loan Banks; the taxpayer-financed payoffs of A.I.G. contracts; the vast expansion of F.D.I.C. guarantees; and, more broadly, the implicit backing provided to every financial firm considered too big, or too strategic, to fail.

One can argue that it’s necessary to rescue Wall Street to protect the economy as a whole — and in fact I agree. But given all that taxpayer money on the line, financial firms should be acting like public utilities, not returning to the practices and paychecks of 2007.

Furthermore, paying vast sums to wheeler-dealers isn’t just outrageous; it’s dangerous. Why, after all, did bankers take such huge risks? Because success — or even the temporary appearance of success — offered such gigantic rewards: even executives who blew up their companies could and did walk away with hundreds of millions. Now we’re seeing similar rewards offered to people who can play their risky games with federal backing.

So what’s going on here? Why are paychecks heading for the stratosphere again? Claims that firms have to pay these salaries to retain their best people aren’t plausible: with employment in the financial sector plunging, where are those people going to go?

No, the real reason financial firms are paying big again is simply because they can. They’re making money again (although not as much as they claim), and why not? After all, they can borrow cheaply, thanks to all those federal guarantees, and lend at much higher rates. So it’s eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may be regulated.

Or maybe not. There’s a palpable sense in the financial press that the storm has passed: stocks are up, the economy’s nose-dive may be leveling off, and the Obama administration will probably let the bankers off with nothing more than a few stern speeches. Rightly or wrongly, the bankers seem to believe that a return to business as usual is just around the corner.

We can only hope that our leaders prove them wrong, and carry through with real reform. In 2008, overpaid bankers taking big risks with other people’s money brought the world economy to its knees. The last thing we need is to give them a chance to do it all over again.

NYT

Le svalutazioni dei toxic assets: a che punto siamo secondo l'IMF

Fonte: IMF

The Turner Review: a regulatory response to the global banking crisis

Following the banking crisis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer asked Lord Turner, in his capacity as our Chairman, to review and make recommendations for reforming UK and international approaches to the way banks are regulated.

The Turner Review

Bernanke e le riforme

Financial Reform to Address Systemic Risk

500 miliardi per RBS e Lloyd TBS

Taxpayers may become liable for £500bn of poor loans and investments made by Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.
Negotiations are at an advanced stage on what the Treasury has called its Asset Protection Scheme, which would involve taxpayers insuring banks against future losses on their less prudent lending and investment.
It is understood that each of Lloyds and Royal Bank hope to insure £250bn of their loans and investments.

They are working towards a deadline of Thursday for Royal Bank and Friday for Lloyds to agree the outline of the deal with the Treasury.

If £500bn of their assets are insured, this would be a bold attempt by the Treasury to achieve two outcomes: first, to strengthen their balance sheets to avoid having to nationalise the banks fully if their losses increase: second, to release resources within the banks to generate perhaps £30bn or £40bn of new lending to companies and homebuyers.
It would also, however, lift the total of British taxpayer support for our banks since the start of the credit crunch - in the form of loans, guarantees, insurance and investment - to a remarkable £1.3 trillion, more-or-less equivalent to the entire annual output of the British economy or GDP.

Sources close to the negotiations said there are still important disagreements between the Treasury and the banks on the terms of the deal.

One contentious area is the size of the loss - known as the first loss - that the banks must incur before taxpayers pick up the tab.

The Treasury wanted the banks' owners, their shareholders, to be liable for the first 10 per cent of the loss.

But on £500bn of assets, that 10 per cent loss would potentially destroy their balance sheets - and thus end up weakening the banks, rather than strengthening them.

Second, is the size of the fee payable by the banks.

This would be in the form of participating preference shares to be issued to the Treasury and would probably be classed under banking regulations as core tier one capital - which means they would reinforce the financial robustness of the banks.

These shares would carry no votes. So the Government's voting control of Royal Bank would remain at 70 per cent and 43 per cent for Lloyds TSB.

But if the fee were set high, the Government's economic interest in these banks - it claims over the banks' assets - could approach 100 per cent.

In the sense of rights over the banks' profits and assets, there would be little or nothing left for Royal Bank's and Lloyds' private sector shareholders. This would represent "economic" nationalisation of the banks, if not formal nationalisation.

The banks and Treasury officials, together with teams of City advisers, are struggling to construct a formula that avoids this economic nationalisation.

Peston's Picks

Lo Schleswig-Holstein e la città di Amburgo lanciano un salvagente a HSH Nordbank

Two German federal states on Tuesday agreed a €13bn ($16.6bn) bail-out of HSH Nordbank, the shipping financier, whose losses on complex structured financial products have crippled the regional lender and blown a hole in government finances.

Government leaders from Schleswig-Holstein and the city state of Hamburg met in Kiel to thrash out a rescue package which was comprised of a €3bn capital injection and €10bn in guarantees to cover future losses.

The deal was put together after Germany’s financial regulator had threatened to shut the bank down unless it raised capital, but must still be approved by both state parliaments.

Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg together own around 60 per cent of HSH, while a further 26 per cent is controlled by JC Flowers, the US investor.

HSH said the injection will raise the bank’s Tier 1 capital from around 7 per cent to almost 9 per cent. The bank also said it planned to reduce the size of its balance sheet by half to around €100bn in the coming years.

“This is good news for the region, the bank, our staff and our clients,” said Dirk Jens Nonnenmacher, HSH chief executive of HSH.

Rasmus Vöge, the regional deputy head of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, told a newspaper on Tuesday that Schleswig-Holstein was “quasi-bankrupt” as a result of HSH’s losses.

The sentiment was echoed by Wolfgang Kubicki, state head of the Free Democratic party, who warned that without federal assistance Schleswig-Holstein faced “political bankruptcy like Iceland”.

Mr Kubicki told Reuters that HSH would require around up to €9bn in capital over the next four to five years.

Although it is constitutionally impossible for a federal state to declare bankruptcy, the comments underscore the depth of the financial calamity that has befallen the region.

HSH posted a €2.8bn loss last year and was forced to secure €30bn in lending guarantees from Soffin, the federal government’s stabilisation fund. Soffin declined to provide further assistance until the bank met certain conditions.

Around one-quarter of HSH’s 4,000 employees are set to lose their jobs as a result of a restructuring plan that will see the bank cut non-core operations and focus more on its clients in northern Germany.

FT.com