老牌子乌鸡白凤丸:巴菲特投资银行的五点疑问

2011年 09月 02日 07:23巴菲特投资银行的五点疑问评论(5)
巴菲特(Warren Buffett)开始从价格被压得很低、资金紧张的华尔街公司获得发薪日贷款回报，上周他就斥资50亿美元投资美国银行(Bank of America Corp.)，这让我感到不安。

你也应该感到不安。

毕竟，在2008年巴菲特和他名下的公司伯克希尔哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway Inc.)大手笔投资金融业后不久，银行和经纪商就在破产的边缘徘徊了。

Bloomberg News自2009年初以来美国银行已经亏损了140亿美元。一旦美国银行出现严重问题，监管机构的超级委员会“金融稳定和监督委员会”（Financial Stability and Oversight Council）又该如何应对如此庞大机构的失败呢？当时，政府前所未有的出手救助，这些公司才幸免于难，此外，当通用电气(General Electric Co.)和高盛集团(GoldmanSachs Group Inc.)股票下挫时，巴菲特的众多忠实拥趸有很多都受到了严重冲击。你可能已经注意到经济形势也不太好。

正因为如此，监管机构、议员、投资者、甚至是公众都需要开始要求华尔街做出答复。在失业率居高不下、经济增长乏力的情况下，美国和全球经济可能无力承受再一次的危机。

以下是五个最急需回答的问题：

1. 这些银行是否有足够的资金？

似乎没人知道，而这令股价持续弱于大盘的银行承压。美国银行首席执行长莫伊尼汉(BrianMoynihan)称，该行不必采取很多措施就可以满足监管要求，但之后美国银行却出售了在一家中资银行的半数股权，筹得了33亿美元。他还说，巴菲特的投资并不是为了筹资。具有讽刺意味的是，美国银行试图令市场放心它没有问题（这件事还没有做）的能力可能会事与愿违地引发这样一次危机。担忧不仅限于美国银行和美资银行。对可能需要进行二次救助的担忧日益加剧。正如国际货币基金组织(International MonetaryFund)前经济学家约翰逊(Simon Johnson)最近写道的，全球警灯肯定都亮着红灯。

2. 我们为何没有获得更多的信息披露？

尽管长达2,000页的《多德－弗兰克法案》(Dodd-Franklaw)进行了众多修订，银行和经纪商的资产负债表仍不透明。甚至是新的披露也太少、太迟了。比如，2008年多家机构从美联储(FederalReserve)借款的数额，直到两年后公众才知晓。借款的数额为1.2万亿美元。如果能知道现在哪些公司在借款，或至少近两年来哪些公司在借款，这可能会有好处。

3.风险是什么？

巴克莱资本（BarclaysCapital）今年2月估计美国的银行对陷入困境的欧元区国家的风险敞口为1,760亿美元，但这些风险主要集中于10家最大的银行。鲜为人知的是影子银行、衍生工具以及交易对手风险。这还只是欧洲的情况。在美国，压力测试已经在考虑发生第二次经济衰退而非政府债务危机的可能性。包括约翰逊在内的一些经济学家认为杠杆率仍然过高。今年6月底高盛的杠杆率为13.5比1，摩根士丹利（MorganStanley）的为14.3比1（两家银行的杠杆率大约为危机发生前的一半）。另外，每家银行源自次级抵押贷款和止赎欺诈诉讼的风险又有多大呢？

4.评级是否稳固？

标准普尔公司（Standard &Poor's）将美国债务评级下调至AA+而震撼了市场。但该公司却给很多次级抵押贷款债券AAA评级。标准普尔给59%的SpringleafMortgage Loan Trust 2011-1授予AAA评级。Springleaf Mortgage Loan Trust2011-1是一批总值4.97亿美元的债权抵押证券，支持该证券的贷款是提供给信用记录不佳或净资产很少的房主的贷款。评级机构今年向总值超过300亿美元的抵押贷款债券授予最高评级。

5.“大到不能倒”的机构情况是否变得更糟？

想想看，金融危机爆发前，就资产集中程度而言，银行业内部的资产更为分散。如今，仅美国银行、花旗集团（Citigroup Inc.）、摩根大通（J.P. MorganChase & Co.）和富国银行（Wells Fargo &Co.）四家机构就控制了超过7万亿美元的资产，在美国资产总量中的占比接近60%。一旦美国银行出现严重问题，监管机构的超级委员会“金融稳定和监督委员会”（Financial Stability and OversightCouncil）又该如何应对如此庞大机构的失败呢？自2009年初以来美国银行已经亏损了140亿美元。对一个资产规模高达2.26万亿美元、员工总数多达28.8万人的全国性银行而言，我们能对其实行“有序清算”吗？

或许吧。监管机构、银行老总和风险控制人员可能已经考虑到所有这些因素，运行过他们的模型，并得出结论说美国金融体系和往常一样健康。或许华尔街那些薪酬丰厚的管理团队已经从错误中吸取了教训。巴菲特可能只是在坚持他一贯的价值投资方式：找到一家受市场不公正对待的健康企业，然后逢低买入。

当然，如果答案真是如此简单，你就要想想看，为什么美国银行会同意向巴菲特支付一年3亿美元的红利？为什么巴菲特选择接受带收益保证的优先股，而不是在公开市场购买普通股？

毕竟，如果你选择收益不封顶的产品，你的回报会更大，是吧？除非你对你的投资对象心存疑虑。

Buffett Is Buying Banks? Five Burning Questions

When Warren Buffett starts extracting payday-loan returns frombeaten-down Wall Street hardship cases, as he did last week with a $5billion investment in Bank of America Corp., it makes me nervous.

You should be, too.

Afterall, shortly after Mr. Buffett and his company, Berkshire HathawayInc., went on a financial-industry spending spree in 2008, the banks andbrokers teetered on the edge of collapse.

It took anunprecedented government bailout to save them, and many of Mr. Buffett'sloyal legion of followers were burned when the stocks of GeneralElectric Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tanked. You may have noticedthat the economy didn't do so well either.

That is whyregulators, lawmakers, investors and even the public need to startdemanding answers of Wall Street. With high unemployment and anemicgrowth, the national and global economy can ill afford another crisis.

So, here are five of the most pressing questions:

1. Do the banks have enough capital? No one seems to know, and it is weighing on the banks whose stockscontinue to lag the broader market. BofA's chief executive, BrianMoynihan, claims the bank won't have to do much to meet regulatoryrequirements, but then it sold half its stake in a Chinese bank to raise$3.3 billion. He also said Mr. Buffett's investment wasn't aboutraising capital. Ironically, BofA's ability to assure the market that itis OK─something it has yet to do─may actually lead to such a crisis.Concern isn't limited to BofA or U.S. banks. Worries about the need for asecond bailout are mounting. As Simon Johnson, former economist of theInternational Monetary Fund, wrote recently, 'the global warning lightsmust be flashing red.'

2. Why aren't we getting more disclosure?Despite all the changes in the 2,000-page Dodd-Frank law, bank andbrokerage balance sheets continue to be opaque. Even new disclosurescome too little, and too late. For instance, it took two years beforethe public knew how much institutions borrowed from the Federal Reservein 2008. It was $1.2 trillion. It might be nice to know what firms areborrowing now, or at least more recently than 24 months.

3. What is the exposure?Barclays Capital estimated in February that U.S. banks have $176billion in exposure to troubled euro-zone countries. But that is mostlyconcentrated in the 10 biggest banks. Lesser known is shadow banking,derivative and counter-party exposure. And that is just Europe. Here,stress tests have looked at the possibility of a second recession butnot a government-debt crisis. Some economists, including Mr. Johnson,argue that leverage ratios are still too high. Goldman's was 13.5-to-1,and Morgan Stanley's was 14.3-to-1 at the end of June (both roughly halfof their pre-crisis leverage). And, what is each bank's litigationexposure stemming from subprime and foreclosure-fraud suits?

4. Are the ratings fixed?Standard & Poor's shook the markets with its downgrade of U.S. debtto double-A-plus. But the firm is doling out triple-A ratings to bondsbuilt from subprime mortgages. S&P rated 59% of Springleaf MortgageLoan Trust 2011-1, a $497 million collateralized debt package backed byloans to homeowners with poor credit or little equity, triple-A. Ratingsfirms have issued top ratings on more than $30 billion in mortgage debtthis year.

5. Has 'too big to fail' been made worse?Consider that before the financial crisis, there was a greater pluralityin banking in terms of concentration of assets. Today, just fourbanks─BofA, Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo& Co.─control more than $7 trillion in U.S. assets, or nearly 60%.With BofA stumbling─it has lost $14 billion since the start of 2009 ─howwould the Financial Stability and Oversight Council, the supercommittee of regulators, deal with the failure of such a large firm?Could there be an 'orderly liquidation' of a national bank with $2.26trillion in assets and 288,000 employees?

Maybe. It is possiblethat regulators, bank CEOs and risk officers have looked at all of this,run their models and found that the U.S. financial system is as healthyas ever. Perhaps Wall Street's well-paid management teams have learnedfrom their mistakes. Mr. Buffett could be just up to his oldvalue-investing ways: finding a healthy company that has been unfairlybattered by the market and buying on the cheap.

Of course, if theanswers were that simple, you would have to wonder why BofA would agreeto pay Mr. Buffett $300 million a year in dividends and why he chose toreceive preferred shares with a guaranteed return instead of buyingcommon stock on the open market.

There would be a bigger upside if you opted for open-ended returns, right? Unless, that is, you had questions.

David Weidner