Der Doomsday Bären-Thread
Denn es ist ja ohnehin "other people's money" aus Europa, China, Asien, Japan, das die Amis dort für ihre Weihnachtsgeschenke (elektronische Gimmicks wie iPods, Gameboys, Spielekonsolen, schicke Seidenschals usw.) "verbraten".
Die Restwelt schuftet und spart, die Amis leisten sich, was sich die anderen vorenthalten. Anschließend "entschulden" sich die Amis bei den anderen durch systematische Geldentwertung (Notenpresse läuft, Helikopter-Ben wirft Dollarscheine ab).
Neue Kursziele 6800, der wachsweiche Nikkei angeblich seitwärts (????), Dow wird von den Schlomos hochgehalten.
Wenn man alle Ingredenzien für das Rezept in einen Topf schmeisst, gibts aus meiner Sicht
nur ein Resultat:
Krawums.
Ich bin verdammt nervös, wenn ich da noch mal nachlege. Was habe ich gelernt? 6500 unbedingt stoppen zusammen mit der Altposition.
Japan awaits week of heavy economic data
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:14 AM ET Nov 27, 2006
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Japanese investors face a hefty release of economic data this week that could provide important clues about the direction of the economy, analysts said Monday.
The releases, to focus on numbers covering October, will be closely watched after disappointing machinery orders data and generally slow employment growth figures in recent months have dominated headlines since the Bank of Japan raised interest rates in July.
"Amid intense speculation over the Bank of Japan's intentions it is clearly keen to tighten policy further this week's numbers will provide some direction," wrote George Worthington, chief economist Asia-Pacific, for IFR Thomson Financial. "Another month of subpar results would push any further tightening well into 2007."
On Friday, a top policy official from Japan's ruling party said he was concerned about a return to deflation and cautioned the central bank against raising interest rates too quickly.
"It was said deflation was in the process of ending ... But with the (recent mixed price and wage indicators), consumption isn't increasing. That's a factor in pushing down prices. We can't judge deflation by just prices," Dow Jones Newswires quoted Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy head of the Liberal Democratic Party as saying. "Rather than moving in the direction of overcoming deflation, I'm more worried about a direction where deflation again becomes stronger."
Among the October data due out are retail sales on Tuesday, industrial output figures Wednesday, housing starts Thursday and household spending figures Friday. The end of the week will also see the release of key consumer price data for Japan and the Tokyo area.
"Market focus will be on the CPI data, where most of the measures should see an unchanged annual increase, apart from Tokyo CPI which (I) expect to return to flat in November after seeing the first rise since 1998," Worthington wrote.
Chris Oliver is MarketWatch's Asia bureau chief, based in Hong Kong.
Um die Schieflage an der Kredit-Front zu erzeugen, reicht bereits ein weiterer Hauspreisverfall um 10 Prozent aus. Die potenzielle "Abrissbirne" sind Credit Default Swaps (Kreditausfall-"Versicherungen" in Derivate-Form) auf Hypotheken-gesicherte Anleihen, die massiv von Hedgefonds (als Stillhalter) verkauft werden. Im Falle einer Schieflage können die Hedgefonds nicht zahlen, weil die Summen astronomisch hoch werden. Die "Versicherung" besteht damit de facto nicht. Es ist so, als würde man den New Yorker Financial District bei der Kreissparkasse Castrop-Rauxel gegen Feuer oder Einsturz versichern.
Der Autor nennt noch weitere Hedgefonds, die auf die Pleite der erstgenannten Hedgefonds spekulieren ["the other side of the trade"]. Beide Seiten sind bereits ziemlich tief involviert, und nur eine wird gewinnen - höchstwahrscheinlich diejenigen, die auf einen Kollaps des Housing-Kreditmarktes setzen.
Investing
Wrecking Ball Looms for Big Housing Spec
By David Merkel
Street.com Contributor
11/27/2006 7:21 AM EST
I have tried to make this column's topic simple, but what I'm writing about is complex because it deals with the derivative markets. It's doubly or triply complex because this situation has many layers to unravel, but there are two good reasons to address such a complex topic.
First, because residential housing is a large part of the U.S. economy, understanding what's going on beneath the surface of housing finance can be valuable. Second, anytime financial markets are highly levered, there is a higher probability that there could be a dislocation. When dislocations happen, it's unwise for investors to try to average down or up. Rather, the best strategy is to wait for the trend to overshoot, and take a contrary position.
There are a lot of players trotting out the bear case for residential housing and mortgages. I'm one of them, but I don't want overstate my case, having commented a few weeks ago on derivatives in the home equity loan asset-backed securities market. This arcane-sounding market is not small potatoes; it actually comprises several billions of dollars' worth of bets by aggressive hedge funds -- the same type of big bettors who blew up so memorably earlier this year, Amaranth and Motherrock.
A shift of just 10% up or down in residential housing prices might touch off just such another cataclysm, so it's worth understanding just how this "arcane-sounding" market works.
I said I might expand on my earlier post, but the need for comment and explanation of this market just got more pressing: To my surprise, one of my Googlebots last Tuesday dragged in a Reuters article and a blog post on the topic. I've seen other writeups on this as well, notably in Grant's Interest Rate Observer (a fine publication) and The Wall Street Journal.
How a Securitization Works (Basically)
It's difficult to short residential housing directly, so a market has grown up around the asset-backed securities market [Hypotheken-gesicherter Anleihemarkt], in which bulls and bears can make bets on the performance of home equity loans. How do they do this?
First, mortgage originators originate home equity loans, Alt-A loans and subprime loans. They bring these loans to Wall Street, where the originator sells the loans to an investment bank, which dumps the loans into a trust. The investment bank then sells participation interests ("certificates") in the trust.
There are different classes of certificates that have varying degrees of credit risk. The riskier classes receive higher interest rates. Typically the originator holds the juniormost class, the equity, and funds an overcollateralization account to give some security to the next most junior class.
Principal payments get allocated to the seniormost class. Once a class gets its full share of principal paid (or cancelled), it receives no more payments. Interest gets allocated in order of seniority. If, after paying interest to all classes, there is excess interest, that excess gets allocated to the overcollateralization account, until the account is full -- that is, has reached a value equal to the value of the second most junior class of trust certificates -- and then the excess goes to the equity class. If there's not enough interest to pay all classes, they get paid in order of seniority.
If there are loan losses from nonpayment of the mortgages or home equity loans, the losses get funded by the overcollateralization account. If the overcollateralization account gets exhausted, losses reduce the principal balances of the juniormost certificates -- those usually held by the originator -- until they get exhausted, and then the next most junior gets the losses. There's a little more to it than this (the prospectuses are often a half-inch thick on thin paper), but this is basically how a securitization works.
From Hedging to Speculation
The top class of certificates gets rated AAA, and typically the lowest class before the equity gets rated BBB-, though sometimes junk-rated certificates get issued. Most of the speculation occurs in securities rated BBB+ to BBB-.
The second phase of this trade involves credit default swaps (CDS). A credit default swap is an agreement where one party agrees to make a payment to another party when a default takes place, in exchange for regular compensation until the agreement terminates or a default happens. This began with corporate bonds and loans, but now has expanded to mortgage- and asset-backed securities.
Unlike shorting stocks, where the amount of shorting is generally limited by the float of the common stock, there can be more credit default swaps than bonds and loans. What began as a market to allow for hedging has become a market to encourage speculation.
With CDS on corporate debt, it took eight years for the notional size (amount to pay if everyone defaulted) of the CDS market to become 4 times the size of the corporate bond market. With CDS on home equity asset-backed securities, it took less than 18 months to get to the same point.
The payment received for insuring the risk is loosely related to the credit spread on the debt that is protected. Given that the CDS can serve as a hedge for the debt, one might think that the two should be equal. There are a couple reasons that isn't so.
First, when a default happens, the bond that is the cheapest to deliver gets delivered. That option helps to make CDS trade cheap relative to credit spreads. But a bigger factor is who wants to do the CDS trading more. Is it those who want to receive payment in a default, or those who want to pay when a default occurs?
How It Impacts Housing
With CDS on asset-backed securities, the party writing protection makes a payment when losses get allocated to the tranche in question. Most protection gets written on tranches rated BBB+ to BBB-.
This is where shorting residential housing comes into the picture. There is more interest in shorting the residential housing market through buying protection on BBB-rated home equity asset-backed securities than there are players wanting to take on that risk at the spreads offered in the asset-backed market at present. [zu deutsch: Der Bedarf an Absicherung für Hauskredite ist größer als die Zahl der Player (Hedgefonds), die zu den gegenwärtigen Konditionen dieses Risiko auf sich zu nehmen bereit sind.] So, those who want to short the market through CDS asset-backed securities have to pay more to do the trade than those in the cash asset-backed securities market receive as a lending spread.
One final layer of complexity is that there are standardized indices (ABX) for home equity loan asset-backed securities. CDS exists not only for the individual asset-backed securities deals, but also on the ABX indices as well. Those not wanting to do the credit work on a specific deal can act on a general opinion by buying or selling protection on an ABX index as a whole. The indices go down in quality from AAA to BBB-, and aggregate similar tranches of the individual deals. Those buying protection receive pro-rata payments when losses get allocated to the tranches in their index.
So, who's playing this game? On the side of falling housing prices and rising default rates are predominantly multi-strategy and mortgage debt hedge funds. They are paying the other side of the trade around 2.5% per year for each dollar of home equity asset-backed securities protection bought. (Deals typically last four years or so.) The market players receiving the 2.5% per year payment are typically hedge and other investment funds running collateralized debt obligations. They keep the equity piece, which further levers up their returns. They are fairly yield-hungry, so from what I've heard, they're none too picky about the risks that they take down.
Wait for the Bounce
Who wins and who loses? This is tricky, but if residential real estate prices fall by more than 10%, the buyers of asset-backed securities protection will probably win. If less, the sellers of protection probably win. This may be a bit of a sideshow in our overly leveraged financial markets, but the bets being placed here exceed ten billion dollars of total exposure. Aggressive investors are on both sides of this trade. Only one set of them will end up happy.
But how can you win here? I believe the safest way for retail investors to make money here is to play the reaction, should a panic occur. If housing prices drop severely and home equity loan defaults occur and you hear of hedge fund failures resulting, don't act immediately. Wait. Watch for momentum to bottom out, or at least slow, and then buy the equities of financially strong homebuilders and mortgage lenders, those that will certainly survive the downturn.
If housing prices rise in the short run (unlikely in my opinion) and you hear about the liquidations of bearish hedge funds, then the best way to make money is to wait. Wait and let the homebuilders and mortgage finance companies run up, and then when momentum fails, short a basket of the stocks with weak balance sheets.
Why play the bounce rather than try to bet on the success of either side? The wait could be quite long before either side loses. Do you have enough wherewithal to stay in the trade? Most players don't; that's why I believe that waiting for one side or the other to prevail is the right course.
Because both sides are levered up, there will be an overshoot. Just be there when the momentum fails, and play the opposite side. Personally, I'll be ready with a list of homebuilders and mortgage lenders with strong balance sheets. Though prospects are not bright today, the best will prosper once the crisis is past.
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Angehängte Grafik:
müderjoe3.png (verkleinert auf 63%)
müderjoe3.png (verkleinert auf 63%)
Anfang Sept. und Nov. verläuft und mittleres BB auch nicht mehr weit ist.
Bin erst mal wieder Neutral zumal Dax bei 6300 auch ne gute Unterstützung erreicht hat.
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Technical Analysis
Not Enough Natural Sellers
By Helene Meisler
Street.com Contributor
11/27/2006 9:11 AM EST
The most disconcerting thing about Friday's trading was that the market did not manage a rally on the day after Thanksgiving. And that means the put-buyers were out in full force.
Yes, the put/call ratio rose once again Friday, proving that folks, at least on a daily basis, still have one eye on the exit doors.
However, the members' short ratio is now at 42%. The last time it was this high was May 1. There is no bell-ringing number that announces, "We're here," but the members only increase their short positions if the market sends them in that direction.
The members, like the specialists on the New York Stock Exchange, tend to be the buyers and sellers of last resort. When everyone is selling, they are buying. When everyone is buying, they are selling.
Oh, it doesn't happen immediately. The buying or selling must go on for an extended period of time, exhausting all "natural" buyers or sellers first. But eventually someone has to take the other side of the customer's trade, and these are the folks who do it when there is no natural buyer or seller.
This is not a sentiment survey; it is not a matter of what people are saying they think about the market. Instead, it is a matter of what they are doing, and in this case, there are too many buyers and not enough natural sellers.
For the entire rally, there have been natural sellers. First, the bears start selling, and then the more aggressive bears start shorting. Then there comes a time when the sellers have sold and the shorts no longer want to short. That's where the members and specialists come in. If the demand to buy is so strong, eventually the members will short stock to the buyers.
In other words, the high reading says that all the natural sellers and shorts are gone from the market, and the members are left to short stock to the buyers. When there are no natural sellers left, we know sentiment has gotten too far to one side.
Back in June and again in mid-September, these member short readings were quite low -- there were few natural buyers, so they were the buyers of last resort -- and the market rallied.
I have been looking for a short-term peak in the market sometime around Thanksgiving, and I believe we will see the market come down this week. However, I also believe tops take a long time to form, which means we haven't seen the last of the rallying. I explained that a down week this week would set us up for yet another "Fed is done" rally, and I still believe that is the case.
Finally, as a follow-up to my bearish comments on the dollar index from Nov. 14, you can see the dollar collapsed last week while I was away. On this weekly chart, I have previously discussed its potential as a bear flag. It has now broken this pattern rather handily. It is now at the lows of last spring, which could give some support here, but a rally back to the underside of the uptrend line around 85 would be an opportunity to sell. The initial downside target measures to 82.
Angehängte Grafik:
36280.gif (verkleinert auf 85%)
36280.gif (verkleinert auf 85%)
By Rev Shark
11/27/2006 11:46 AM EST
Given the steady rise in recent weeks, we were due for a day like this, with relentless selling. A lot of folks have been walking the high wire as stocks become increasingly technically extended, and now they are scrambling as we see something of a free fall. Because we went up in a straight line, there isn't any solid nearby support to keep the downside contained.
The big question we have to consider is whether this is just a good old fashioned bout of profit-taking that will give the folks looking for entry points an opportunity to load up, or the start of increased concern about preserving recent gains.
For the most part, the pundits have focused on all those poor souls who have not participated fully in this rally. What about those who have participated and now have some big gains?
Are they going to risk blowing their profits on the belief that this market will continue to run to the upside through the remainder of the year? Maybe some will be happy to sell at this point and call it a year if they caught a good run.
I'd be surprised if we don't see at least some attempted dip-buying, but I'm far less certain we are going to reverse easily when there are plenty of longs sitting on big gains who might want to lighten up if they get a chance on a bounce.
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Wenn jetzt noch die value at risk (Differenz Stille Reserven zu Buchwert. Eine Scenario Abbildung des Bafin, den PK´s und LVU´s aufgedrückt) Stopps greifen, dann kann man das Licht ausknippsen.
Heute wäre ein idealer Einstiegstag für die Shorts gewesen.
Deja vu – etwas Gegenwärtiges schon mal erlebt zu haben
Unter dem Titel "Riskante Rekord-Übernahmen – Riesen im Kaufrausch" wird auf Spiegel-Online heute eine kurzer Abriss über den Mega-Fusionsmarkt, welcher z.Z. hauptsächlich in den USA stattfindet, aufgezeigt. Der Leser des Artikels fühlt sich unwillkürlich an die Jahre 1999 / 2000 erinnert, nur dass die Dimensionen der Übernahmen mittlerweile noch aufgeblasener erscheinen. Während hier in Deutschland im Nachgang zu der Vodafone / Mannesmann – Übernahme sich diverse Beteiligte vor Gericht verantworten mussten ( 5,8 Mill.€ und Tschüss ), werden jenseits des Atlantiks die Grenzen der Markttoleranz neu ausgelotet.
Hier einige Auszüge des besagten Artikels :
Selbst die Experten waren baff. "Das ist die reine Fusionsmanie", sagte Top-Analyst Howard Silverblatt von Standard & Poor's. "Wir dürften hier einen Rekord haben."
In der Tat: Es war ein Rekord, und nicht der einzige. Allein Anfang vergangener Woche erschütterten mehr als 40 Fusions-Deals im Wert von rund 76 Milliarden Dollar die Wall Street und den Rest der Börsenwelt. Weitere folgten in den Tagen darauf.
Etwa die 36-Milliarden-Dollar-Übernahme des weltgrößten Büroimmobilienkonzerns Equity Office Properties Trust aus Chicago durch die Finanzbeteiligungsgesellschaft Blackstone Group. Allein das war die größte Firmenübernahme seit Menschengedenken.
Die Sensationsgeschäfte, die in den vergangenen Tagen aktenkundig wurden, lassen die damalige Ära fast verblassen: Kupfergigant Freeport-McMoRan schluckt den Rivalen Phelps Dodge für 25,9 Milliarden Dollar. Der Fernseh- und Radiokonzern Clear Channel geht für 18,7 Milliarden Dollar an ein Investmentkonsortium. Bank of America übernimmt U.S. Trust, die Privatbanktochter des Wall-Street-Hauses Charles Schwab, für 3,3 Milliarden Dollar. Der US-Stahlkonzern Oregon Mills geht für 2,3 Milliarden Dollar an den russischen Stahlriesen Evraz.
Auch sonst erinnert vieles an die Zustände, die seinerzeit zum großen Knall führten: Die Zinsen sind niedrig, Schulden billig, die Liquidität ist hoch. Viele Konzerne verfügen über jede Menge Cash - 60 Prozent aller Deals dieses Jahres wurden in bar bezahlt, 2000 waren es gerade mal 29 Prozent. "Der Cash-Hahn dürfte auch weiter offen bleiben", sagt Börsenexpertin Diane Vazza von Standard & Poor's in der "Business Week".
Schaumschlägerei", nennt auch Allan Sloan, der Börsenkorrespondent von "Newsweek", die bombastischen Deals dieser Tage. Die Fusionswelle sei "womöglich ein Zeichen finanziellen Wahnwitzes", der sich weniger als sechs Jahre nach dem Börsencrash wieder in die Märkte einschleiche. Sloan sieht in der Unersättlichkeit der Kapitalgesellschaften und des "alternativen Investment-Marktes" denn auch erste "Blasen". Namentlich bei dem Blackstone-Abenteuer, das zwei wacklige Märkte verknüpft - Immobilien und Kapital.
Andere gehen derweil auf Pump einkaufen. So verschuldet sich Blackstone mit seinem Übernahme-Deal um 16 Milliarden Dollar und Freeport-McMoRan um 15 Milliarden Dollar. Eine "atemberaubende" Summe, schrieb die Analystin Carol Levenson von Gimme Credit zur Freeport-Schuldensumme.
Die großen Wall-Street-Firmen verdienten in den ersten neun Monaten 2006 mehr als im gesamten Vorjahr zusammen. Klar, dass auch ihre weihnachtlichen Bonusausschüttungen an die fleißigen Mitarbeiter mal wieder alle Rekorde brechen: Sie dürften dieses Jahr, so erste Branchenprognosen, bis zu 25 Prozent über denen von 2005 liegen. Ein ganz normaler Finanzmanager wird demzufolge eine Prämie von 1,7 Millionen Dollar bekommen, sein Boss bis zu 25 Millionen Dollar und ein guter Trader auch mal 50 Millionen Dollar.
Und das ist nur der Bonus aufs Gehalt.
Durch das Lesen der nachfolgenden Zeilen, welche ich heute im Netz fand, konnte ich mein Deja vu – Erlebnis allerdings noch ein gutes Stück erweitern :
Die Google-Aktie erklimmt neue Höchststände, Web 2.0 ist in aller Munde. Grassiert ein neues Internetfieber? Fondsmanager Volker Kuhnwaldt sagt im Gespräch, warum diesmal alles anders sein soll und die zweite Internetwelle für ihn keine Blase ist.
Wird diesmal alles anders ?
Oder sind in Moneyland die Abgründe für Lemminge bereits schon wieder ausgeschildert ?
Schon merkwürdig, gerade läuft Grönemeyer im Radio, Der Mensch heißt Mensch, weil er vergisst, weil er verdrängt ......
Stöffen
Dann hättest Du heute auch nicht in den Trendbruch shorten können.
Ich glaube bei so vielen Maniacs, die frei rumlaufen dürfen,
erwischt man niemals den richtigen Zeitpunkt.
MaW´n
1. Reines Glücksspiel
2. Scheißspiel. Versaute Aktienkultur...
IMO
Market warning from those in the know
Muzea sees steeper declines based on lack of insider buying
By Herb Greenberg, MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:09 PM ET Nov 27, 2006
SAN DIEGO (MarketWatch) -- If George Muzea is right, Monday's decline is just the start. Muzea, who runs Reno-based Muzea Insider Consulting Services, has been negative on the market for just two weeks -- the first time he has been bearish since July 24, when he turned positive.
Muzea makes market calls based on the activity of corporate insiders. He's considered the grandfather of the insider-tracking industry, generally keeping a low profile to all but his high-paying hedge fund clients.
We speak every now and then. When we spoke last week he gave me an earful that I only wish now I had published then. (Such is life! The Thanksgiving break was calling.) But, according to Muzea, this is likely the beginning of a sharp and steep decline not unlike the one that hit the market last spring -- and maybe worse.
The only thing he doesn't know is whether, as is often the case, he is a month or two early. The wild card on timing, he says, is the impact 401k money will have inflows in January, which could give the market one last gasp into early spring. He'll know, he says, if insiders stop selling early in the year.
Muzea notes, however, that insiders have been finding less value in the market over the past eight years. "Every time you have a low," he says, "you have fewer and fewer stocks with positive patterns."
Before you go calling this a scare tactic on a down day, keep that Muzea has a record, and he is basing his forecast on a history of following the market as it relates to the actions of insiders. "If you want to lose money over a long period of time," he says, "buy when insiders are selling and the public is bullish." (Regular readers will remember his name from a few very good calls in the past.)
Adding to the intrigue this time, he says, is the increasingly powerful role of electronically traded funds. "The players and numbers of ETFs are expanding exponentially, and they're putting that money into EFTs" that track indices like the Nasdaq 100 or the S&P 500. The most disconcerting part of the story, he says, is that these investors what have flocked into the ETFs don't need an uptick -- or a rise in prices -- to sell them short. "If the market is vulnerable right now," he asks, "what would happen if a geopolitical event or something else happens? How fast would it take for the Dow to go down 500 or 700 points, with everybody going short to protect themselves? When they start selling these, who is going to buy them?"
The concern, of course, is that the answer will be: Nobody.
Ein Fonds der den S&P 500 abbildet bringt mehr, als dem Treiben von Medien-, Auto- oder Pharmamanagern zu folgen,auch Manager in der Finanzbranche schneiden einer Morgan-Stanley-Studie zufolge nur unterdurchschnittlich ab.
Google nur mal so als Beispiel...
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Gefahr einer Kreditblase wächst
Immer mehr Unternehmen werden durch Beteiligungsfirmen übernommen. Diese finanzieren die Kaufsumme zu einem großen Teil mit Fremdkapital - ein gefährliches Spiel.
Von Martin Hesse
"Wir sind uns der Risiken bewusst, die der Liquiditätsüberschuss birgt", sagte Johannes Huth zur Eröffnung des zehnten Deutschen Eigenkapitalforums am Montag in Frankfurt.
Der Europa-Chef von Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) - neben Blackstone die größte Beteiligungsgesellschaft der Welt - sprach von einer Liquiditätsblase an den Kreditmärkten.
Beteiligungsfirmen wie KKR finanzieren ihre Übernahmen in der Regel zu 70 Prozent und mehr mit Schulden. Diese bürden sie den gekauften Firmen auf, die sie aus ihren Erträgen bedienen und abbezahlen.
Boom durch niedrige Zinsen
In den vergangenen zwei Jahren haben Banken wegen der niedrigen Zinsen ihr Angebot an Krediten und Anleihen für Firmenübernahmen massiv ausgedehnt. Diese fremdfinanzierten Unternehmenskäufe werden im Fachjargon als Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs), also gehebelte Übernahmen, bezeichnet.
Huth, der als einflussreichster deutscher Private-Equity-Manager gilt, sagte, im Durchschnitt würden Firmen bei Buyouts mittlerweile mit Schulden in Höhe des 5,5-fachen des operativen Gewinns belastet. Im historischen Durchschnitt lag der Wert bei etwa 4,5. Huth sagte, KKR setze maximal einen Hebel von 4,5 an. Als besonders aggressiv bei der Finanzierung gelten die Beteiligungssparten der Investmentbanken, etwa Goldman Sachs und CSFB.
Hochprofitabel, aber riskant
Für Finanzinvestoren besteht der Reiz eines hohen Schuldenanteils bei der Übernahme darin, dass dadurch automatisch die Rendite auf ihr eingesetztes Eigenkapital höher ausfällt.
Läuft das Geschäft schlecht, wächst jedoch die Gefahr, dass die hoch verschuldeten Unternehmen ihre Schulden nicht mehr bedienen können. In Branchen, die derzeit in Schwierigkeiten stecken, lassen sich die möglichen Folgen schon jetzt ablesen.
So musste der Finanzinvestor Permira die Kontrolle über den Autozulieferer Kiekert im Sommer an die Gläubiger abgeben, weil Kiekert den Schuldendienst nicht mehr leisten konnte. In der gleichen Branche fiel TMD Friction aus dem Besitz der Beteiligungsfirma Montagu in die Hände der Gläubiger.
"Der Markt ist fundamental zu hoch verschuldet", sagt Ansgar Zwick, Deutschland-Chef der auf Restrukturierung spezialisierten Investmentbank Houlihan Lokey. Fälle wie Kiekert seien erst der Anfang eines Prozesses, der sich verstärken werde, wenn die Konjunktur abflaut, die Zinsen steigen und die Banken bei der Kreditvergabe restriktiver werden.
"Das Grundpoblem ist, dass für die Unternehmen zu optimistische Geschäftspläne gemacht werden, um die Kreditauflagen zu erfüllen", sagt Zwick. "Es gibt Firmen, die werden umfallen, wenn es einmal fünf Tage regnet."
Börsennotierte Unternehmen übernehmen Praxis
KKR-Manager Huth verwies am Montag darauf, dass die Finanzierungspraxis der Private-Equity-Eigentümer, die ihre Firmen ja in der Regel außerhalb der Börse führen, auf aktiennotierte Unternehmen abfärbe.
"Auch börsennotierte Unternehmen haben in den vergangenen Jahren ihre Schuldenquoten erhöht", sagte Huth. So sei bereits 2005 das Volumen an Aktienrückkäufen auf 103 Milliarden Euro gestiegen. Werden Aktien eingezogen, reduziert sich das Eigenkapital und die Verschuldungsquote steigt.
Tatsächlich mehren sich die Anzeichen, dass auch einige börsennotierte Firmen Schwierigkeiten beim Schuldendienst bekommen könnten. So werden etwa Anleihen des Touristik- und Schifffahrtkonzerns TUI am Kapitalmarkt derzeit unter ihrem Nennwert gehandelt.
Diese Bewertung bedeutet, dass die Marktteilnehmer die Rückzahlung der Anleihe als unsicher einstufen. Beim Abosender Premiere haben sich bereits zwei Banken von Anleihen getrennt, ebenfalls zu Kursen unter dem Nennwert.
Konkurrenz zur Börse
Derzeit führen die guten Finanzierungsbedingungen für Private-Equity-Fonds jedoch noch dazu, dass immer größere Übernahmen gestemmt werden. Huth erwartet, dass das auch noch eine Weile so bleibt.
"Wir werden in den nächsten zwölf Monaten in Europa Buyouts im Wert von mehr als 30 Milliarden Euro sehen", ist der KKR-Europa-Chef überzeugt. Die Bedeutung von Private Equity in Europa werde weiter zunehmen und als Kapitalquelle verstärkt in Konkurrenz zur öffentlichen Notierung an der Börse (Public Equity) treten. "Ich sehe einen Trend, Unternehmen von der Börse zu nehmen", so Huth.
(SZ vom 27.11.2006) http://www.sueddeutsche.de/finanzen/artikel/928/92836/
Die schwachen Wal-Mart-Zahlen bei den Holiday-Weekend-Verkäufen (von mir bereits oben gepostet) waren zusammen mit der Dollar-Schwäche einiger der Gründe für den heutigen Aktien-Abverkauf in USA. Er wird wohl noch mindestens 2 bis 3 Tage weiter laufen (Bullen-Version), könnte aber auch bis ins nächste Jahr andauern (Bären-Version).
Where Wal-Mart Goes, Others Likely Follow
By Tony Crescenzi
Street.com Contributor
11/27/2006 3:37 PM EST
When I hear of weak results from Wal-Mart at the same time I hear sales may have gone well elsewhere, I am hard pressed to think sales could have been as stellar as some have said for the holiday weekend given that Wal-Mart has such a large share of the pie, although something very company-specific could be at play. Modest sales gains at Wal-Mart in recent months seemed to signal modest retail sales figures, lending weight to the argument.
My second thought on any weaker-than-expected sales result is that it could be rooted in the housing market. A key theory of mine is that the amount of income lost as a result of weaker housing activity is probably greater than what shows up in government data because more of the construction sector's income is off the books than is the case in other sectors.
This means that on the way up, many workers, particularly immigrant workers, were earning income that went uncounted until it showed up in the spending figures. On the way down, the loss of income will also be missed, but it will show up in the spending figures, as may be happening in the current situation.