Money, Investments and the Economy

I am not saying they operate that differently, but many of them have much duller corporate cultures (and evidently more robust risk management). For real snorting-cocaine-off-hookers-tits depravity, not much beats Swiss bankers doing a deal with men from the Gulf.

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had a couple older friends who worked at Brink Hudson before the time they got into trouble with the Securities Commission. Iā€™ve heard stories of such escapades, including one that may or may not have included a particular strip bar around the time of Motley Crueā€™s recording at Little Mountain.

Iā€™ve been in that studio, it was quite a tribute to Rock music and I think some of it was on display at Hard Rock Vancouver before it closed.

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Oh the old wild west of the VSEā€¦

UBS to acquire Credit Suisse. Equivalent to 0.76 CHF per share. Total consideration 3 billion CHF.

So any CS shareholder could have sold Friday for 2 CHF, thereabouts. Now the Swiss government decided their shares are worth 0.76 CHF in a deal they wonā€™t get to vote on. And what about UBS shareholders? Wonder how that stock will behave. Presumably, should rise, but who knows. Is it even clear Credit Suisse is insolvent?

I guess when they accepted the loan from the government, the information the government got from them is that they no longer can sustain the business without more help externally. So unless the government continues bailing them out or the condition is for them to sell and by then, CS no longer holds their destiny in their own hands.

It just does not sit right when Svb UK pays bonus in millions days after it was rescued. You can say this was agreed before the collapse but no matter how it is phrased, it just does not sit right.

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I donā€™t know what Swiss banking regulation looks like, but presumably there was a fairly compelling case that CS was about to collapse. Still, as you say, that is a significant haircut in just 48 hours on a share price that had fallen dramatically. The low was under 1.5 CHF.

Glad I didnā€™t try to catch that particular falling knife.

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I love how in these government deals they (the govt.) gets to pick who wins and loses. Somehow, equity gets some money, while some of the bondholders get nothing.

Unfortunately this is how it goes. My friend was asked to top up or lose everything he had in CS. He let go. When the government gets involved in a private company of this size, it is going to be a big picture, protect the big infrastructure, which inevitably protects certain groups of people over others, so as to maintain the macro stability. That is why I donā€™t like such investments. I just live as much as I have. What will be will be.

Ouch!

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Didnā€™t see that coming. UBS are of course the big winners here. They take over a massive bank for a peanut. The buildings owned by CS in Switzerland only are already worth much, much more than what UBS pay for CS. As the two banks will become one, I donā€™t think that CS shareholders will end up losers here?

The ones who are afraid now are the 17k CS employees in Switzerland, and the 120k worldwide, as UBS will of course ruthlessly cut their numbers.

Short term I think some will lose out if they panick and sell off their shares, but as I understand it, if you hold onto any CS shares, they will convert over but at a massivilly low value so holding onto them long term might see their value return if people are patient

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I think CS shareholders are massive losers here. If you held CS 5 months ago, it was just below 5 francs, 8 a year ago. Characteristically, bank stocks are not volatile trading opportunities, the majority of shareholders will have held those shares for years. Now they are worth 0.76 CHF in UBS stock. It will take a long time before UBS shares will see that kind of value returned.

As the note above says, the valuation suggests a more troubled asset portfolio than CS was letting on - or at least one that could not be subject to a reliable valuation in a crisis time frame. Those buildings are worth a good deal, but some of CSā€™ financing obligations would appear to be worth quite a lot as well on the other side of the ledger. Thatā€™s not to say that UBS wonā€™t end up well out of the deal, but in a situation like this, there usually arenā€™t any big winners at all.

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Based on what the market is doing now, I think the Swiss government has screwed up. In the name of preventing contagion, they have structured a deal that is now contagiously hitting the value of all AT1 bonds across all banks, and therefore the share price of most. Even UBS shares seem to be handing back the spike from the announcement of the deal.

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and hereā€™s a backdoor deal we all saw coming.

Gas :arrow_right:
Weapons :arrow_left:

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I am not sure what the news there actually is. That pipeline has been operational for years, and was being expanded in 2019 with a scheduled expansion of deliveries this year.

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if China will formally break the sanctions against Russia levied by the international community and put their trade agreements with the west at risk. Thatā€™s my take, anyways.

There arenā€™t really any sanctions that are international, rather than multilateral. China is already operating under some restrictions due to Russian trade, hence their declining use of mechanisms like SWIFT. Gas for money doesnā€™t seem to create any new problems for them - and has been ongoing the whole time. If anything, the only real news here is that Russia is taking a 70% haircut on gas.

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and with that, China needs less gas from the west. so our prices here should drop, right? RIGHT?