ONLINE PETITION: http://www.petitiononline.com/isntbb11
TWITTER: @ballyhea14
FACEBOOK PAGE: Ballyhea bondholder bailout protest
June 7th 2011
BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – THE NUMBERS
Over the last several months of the Ballyhea protest, I’ve been asked many times about numbers – well, here, as best I can manage it, a few pertinent figures:
HOW MUCH IS STILL DUE IN BONDS, AND WHO HOLDS THEM?
According to the Namawinelake blog, the Central Bank of Ireland published in March 2011 on a “once-off” basis the bondholdings in the six state-guaranteed financial institutions. This is its (corrected) summary.
Add up the totals across the bottom, comes to €64.326bn.
WHEN ARE THEY DUE?
Again according to Namawinelake, Here is the precise bondholder position in each of the six state-guaranteed (or as the Central Bank of Irelandwould call them ‘covered institutions’). The information is firstly sorted by bank, then by maturity date. It should be said that this list remains a work in progress and there seems to be some discrepancy in some instances between the totals here and the totals published by the Central Bank (this warning by Namawinelake). Here’s the summary, the Central Bank of Ireland figures on the left and the NAMAwinelake analysis on the right.
There’s some €9bn of difference between the figures produced by the CBI in March 2011 and this present Namawinelake analysis - work is continuing to identify the discrepancy. In terms of the analysis, some €7bn of the €73bn falls due in 2011, €20bn in 2012, €17bn in 2013 and €29bn in 2014 onwards. It should be said that a small number of bonds don’t have identifiable maturity dates and these have been grouped in the 2014- category.
There’s some €9bn of difference between the figures produced by the CBI in March 2011 and this present Namawinelake analysis - work is continuing to identify the discrepancy. In terms of the analysis, some €7bn of the €73bn falls due in 2011, €20bn in 2012, €17bn in 2013 and €29bn in 2014 onwards. It should be said that a small number of bonds don’t have identifiable maturity dates and these have been grouped in the 2014- category.
WHO ARE THE BONDHOLDERS?
We don’t know, but one man, David Norris, made an effort to tell us a few months ago in the sanctuary of the Senate and was shut down -http://www.independent.ie/national-news/norris-silenced-after-revealing-names-of-bondholders-2448840.html). Using parliamentary privilege Mr Norris managed to name five of the international financial institutions he says the Irish taxpayer will be forced to repay as a consequence of the Government's highly-controversial EU/IMF bailout deal. Addressing the Seanad, the independent senator read the names of Aberdeen Asset Management (London) Ltd, AGICAM, Aktia Asset Management, Aletti Gestielle SGR and Alliance Bernstein (UK) Ltd, on to the record before being ruled out of order by Cathaoirleach Pat Moylan.
The five institutions are included on a list 80 international firms drawn from countries including Germany, France, Italy and the UK, which, Mr Norris says, are the bondholders of the State-owned Anglo Irish Bank.
GUIDO’S GUIDE TO THE BONDHOLDERS
‘Guido’ is another blog, and blogs have become the best places these days in which to get truly independent information. He wrote:
Anglo-Irish Bondholders Should Take the Losses - Is the ECB Forcing Ireland to Protect German Investments?
Anglo-Irish Bank did not represent a systemic risk to the Irish economy, it wasn’t a high street bank like AIB or the Bank of Ireland. If it had been allowed to go the way of Lehmans the only losers would have been shareholders and bondholders. The Irish state stepped in and nationalised a bank that was basically run by crooks lending to property speculators. The Irish people are taking losses that should rightly have been shouldered by bondholders.
Every child in Ireland is being bequeathed a huge debt at birth to protect the interests of foreign, mainly German, bondholders – why? Guido was once a bond trader, it was always understood that sometimes the bond issuer defaults. That is the risk investors take.
For the full article, go to http://order-order.com/2010/10/15/anglo-ECB-bondholders-should-take-the-lossesis-the-ECB-forcing-ECB-to-protect-german-investments/
HOW MUCH EXPOSURE DOES THE ECB HAVE TO BONDS EUROPE-WIDE?
Yet another blog - (http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ecb-has-%E2%82%AC444-billion-piigs-exposure-425-drop-asset-values-would-bankrupt-european-central-ba) – says: We estimate that the ECB has exposure to struggling eurozone economies (the so-called PIIGS) of around €444bn – an amount roughly equivalent to the GDP of Finland and Austria combined.
Regards,
Diarmuid O'Flynn.
