Zero Hedge — It has already been an abysmal day for Germany’s biggest lender: overnight Deutsche Bank plunged to fresh all time lows on speculation whether the German government would or wouldn’t provide state aid to the bank (if needed), forcing the bank to state it does not need the funds at the same time as the government urged markets that “you can’t compare” Deutsche Bank and that “other” bank, Lehman Brothers, although looking at the chart, one may beg to differ.
However, while DB stock closed at session lows, over 7% lower on the day at around (euro)10.60 , with its market cap of $16 billion now rapidly approaching the $14 billion litigation settlement demanded by the DOJ, the bad news did not stop there.
Deutsche needs to raise capital. It may choose to wait until litigation issues have been resolved, but the further the share price falls, the more dilutive a capital raise becomes (and vice versa).
Maybe so, but a “German banking crisis” would certainly delight the Italians, who have been on the receiving end of Germany’s stern lecturing about “sticking to the rules,” not to mention Schaeuble’s insistence not to engage in state-funded bailouts in this day and age of mandatory bail-ins, and explains why Merkel’s party has been so careful not to admit that a bailout may ultimately be the endgame.
Then again, Merkel’s stated position opens up a can of worms. As Lynn (The Telegraph) correctly notes, “if the German government does not stand behind the bank, then inevitably all its counter-parties – the other banks and institutions it deals with – are going to start feeling very nervous about trading with it.As we know from 2008, once confidence starts to evaporate, a bank is in big, big trouble. In fact, if Deutsche does go down, it is looking increasingly likely that it will take Merkel with it – and quite possibly the euro as well.”
Even without counterparty risk rearing its ugly head, the market appears to already be pricing it in.
The damage can be seen in its share price. Last October, the shares were at 27 euros. Back in 2007, they were over 100 euros, and even in the spring of 2009, when banks were crashing all across the world, they were still trading at close on 17 euros. For most of this year they have been sliding fast. On Monday, they crashed again, down another 6pc. Its bonds have slumped as well, while the cost of credit default swaps – essentially a way of hedging against a collapse – have jumped. It all has a very 2008 feel to it.
Indeed, but what is Merkel to do: admit that all the posturing about a stable banking system was just a lie, and the demands for Italy to get its house in order were sheer hypocrisy… or do what Allianz admitted that ultimately Deutsche Bank will have to be bailed out?
As Lynn points out, “there is something to be said for a hard-line position. It is hard to be sure the massive bank bail-outs of 2008 were such a great idea. Perhaps we would be better off now if a few had been allowed to fail. That said, Merkel is surely playing with fire. In the markets, investors, along with other financial institutions, have rightly or wrongly come to assume that major banks are, as the saying has it, ‘too big to fail’. You didn’t really have to worry about how solid they were, because if the crunch came the state would always ride to the rescue.”
And this is why Merkel is cornered: “for Germany to then turn around and say, actually we are bailing out our own bank, while letting everyone else’s fail, looks, to put it mildly, just a little inconsistent. A few people might even start to wonder if there was one rule for Germany, and another one for the rest. In truth, it would become impossible to maintain a hard-line in Italy, and probably in Greece as well.”
“And yet” Lynn adds, “if Deutsche Bank went down, and the German Government didn’t step in with a rescue, that would be a huge blow to Europe’s largest economy – and the global financial system. No one really knows where the losses would end up, or what the knock-on impact would be. It would almost certainly land a fatal blow to the Italian banking system, and the French and Spanish banks would be next. Even worse, the euro-zone economy, with France and Italy already back at zero growth, and still struggling with the impact of Brexit, is hardly in any shape to withstand a shock of that magnitude.”
And just like that, Germany finds itself in the same position the Fed and US Government were in September 2008: let the bank fail and deal with the devastating consequences, or inject a few more billion and keep the bank alive for a few more quarters. Indeed, “the politics of a rescue are terrible, but the economics of a collapse are even worse. By ruling out a rescue, she may well have solved the immediate political problem. Yet when the crisis gets worse, as it may do at any moment, it is impossible to believe she will stick to that line. A bailout of some sort will be cobbled together – even if the damage to Merkel’s already fraying reputation for competence will be catastrophic.”
