Ten Banks Expected to “Fail” Stress Tests

It’s Stress Test Week!  (Again).  But this time, we’re talking results instead of just, you know, hey, guess what’s happening behind closed doors.  The nation’s 19 largest banks have all seen their results by now, and rumors have been flying since Monday about what, exactly, those results showed.  I thought I’d do a round-up of expectations now, and then come back tomorrow and see how the banks fared in reality.  I’ve waxed on about what the tests mean before.  And I’ve said my faith in Treasury rests largely on the results.  So here it is: judgment day.  Rumor has it, ten banks aren’t expected to pass (which is different than a bank failing outright, because if they don’t pass, they’re given time to raise capital).  Here’s the Top Ten:

Citibank is held by Citigroup.  It’s expected to need a major infusion of cash — talk is $10 billion.  Citi apparently appealed the government’s findings.  Just this week, it sold its Japanese finance company, Nikko Cordial, for about $3.4 billion (it bought Nikko in 2008 for around $18B) to raise some much-needed cash.  Citi is largely considered the bell-weather of this test, in that if it’s deemed to “pass,” the rest of the test should be considered a joke.
Current government investment in Citi: ~$45 billion (some in common stock).

Bank of America is the nation’s largest retail bank, as of last fall when it bought Merrill Lynch — and is also expected to be the bank in the most trouble, since last fall it — hey! — bought Merrill Lynch.  BoA is expected to need a whopping $33.9 billion in additional capital post-test.
Current TARP investment in BoA: ~$45 billion (unless you count the government’s asset guarantees in.  Then we’re talking 45 + $142 billion = $187 billion).

Wells Fargo was considered in prime shape this fall when it bought out troubled Wachovia, and it took money from the TARP — but only under duress.  Now, despite the CEO’s protests that the stress tests are “asinine,” the bank is considered one of the most likely to be under pressure to raise new capital.  Warren Buffet, whose Berkshire Hathaway investment group owns shares of Wells Fargo (and US Bancorp, SunTrust, and BoA) and pushed for the Wachovia takeover, called Wells and US Bancorp “extremely strong banks” Monday.
Current TARP investment: ~$25 billion.

KeyCorp owns the Key Bank franchises.  It’s considered to be widely and heavily exposed in the commerical real-estate market, which is taking some significant hits as businesses suffer during the recession.  Analysts at several research/investment firms have said KeyCorp is quite likely to need to raise additional capital, and it has shown a loss in all of the last four quarters.
Current TARP investment: ~$2.5 billion

Regions Financial is in about the same boat as KeyCorp.  Oppenheimer analysts said late last month that they expected Regions to fail the stress tests and have to raise more capital.  Regions posted a 92% loss in the first quarter.  Holy mackeral.
Current TARP investment: ~$2.5 Billion

US Bancorp owns U.S. Bank, the sixth largest commercial bank in the country.  It’s not widely expected to need a big capital raise; it cut dividends earlier this year by 88 percent to maintain its capital cushion.  Its CEO also announced late last month that US Bancorp is ready to repay its TARP money as soon as possible.  The bank had a $529 million profit in the first quarter, down significantly from past years but a better showing than expected.
Current TARP investment: $6.6 billion

Fifth Third Bancorp is another regional bank expected to need additional capital.  It’s based in Florida, where the burst of the housing bubble is still taking down everything in its path.  Like Regions, were the government to convert its preferred shares to common shares, it would own a majority stake (54 percent) of Fifth Third.  One wonders if that’s enough ownership to induce a name change.
Current TARP investment: $3.4 billion

Like Fifth Third, Georgia-based SunTrust is a considered a regional bank likely to be told to get thee more capital, according to a report issued by Mogan Stanley last month.  Then again, Morgan Stanley though BoA fell into a “grey zone” and might not need new capital, so who knows. SunTrust wrote off $610 million in bad loans just in the first quarter this year, and apparently holds a big balance sheet of home mortgage loans in the Southeast.  Last week, a huge Georgia banker’s bank with similar ugly exposure became the fifth largest bank failure this year.  In January, analysts were already predicting SunTrust would need another $2 billion.  They went back for $1B from TARP, so at this point, I’d guess they’ll need at least $1B.
Current TARP investment: ~$5 billion.

PNC Financial Services Group posted a profit last quarter, mostly on the strength of its acquisition of National City — a move that some say gave the bank a needed capital boost.  Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods say PNC is likely to need more capital despite cutting dividend payments earlier this year.
Current TARP investment: ~$7.5 billion

And lucky number 10.  Capital One Financial Group is mentioned with some regularity as a bank expected to need additional capital.  Its exposure is largely in credit cards, and as unemployment rises (in the stress tests, it went over 10 percent) so do expected defaults on credit card payments. 
Current TARP exposure: $3.5 billion

Ten banks are expected to have “failed,” or, in the nicer terminology, to need to raise new capital so as to have a nice cushion in case of the economy continuing to decline.  The remaining nine banks are considered variably secure right now, though BB&T is mentioned in several articles as likely to be asked to raise capital, too, and I’m a little surprised that no one thinks GMAC is going to need any further funding.
Current BB&T TARP Investment: ~$3 billion

Current GMAC TARP Investment: $5 billion

The remaining banks (bank holding companies) are:

• J.P. Morgan Chase.  Current TARP Investment: $25 billion
• Goldman Sachs Group.  Current TARP Investment: $10 billion
• Morgan Stanley.  Current TARP Investment: $10 billion
• State Street Corp.  Current TARP Investment: $2 billion
• Bank of New York Mellon.  Current TARP Investment: $3 billion
• American Express Co.  Current TARP Investment: ~$3.4 billion
• MetLife.  No TARP Investment.

Well, so, let’s see what happens now.

New Treasury Plan: This Ain’t Yo’ Momma’s TARP

Treasury officials are considering a new plan, the New York Times reports, to help banks recapitalize: they’d convert their current loans into common stock in the bank, which would translate to actual equity and, perhaps, the accompanying power that comes with being a shareholder.  This would include some power to decide who stays on the board and, yes, would probably be a big step toward nationalization — all without having to ask Congress for any additional money.

The problem is that, for at least some of these banks, we’d be converting not just loans, as the Times leads with, but preferred stock into common stock.  One stock for another? Paul Krugman was quick to call the plan baffling, and he came up with this analogy:

Here’s how I think about it: you started a business with a bunch of borrowed money, but of course had to put some of your own money in. Now, actually some of the money you put in was borrowed from your mother, but the original lenders don’t care about that, since they have prior claim.

Eventually you run into some business difficulties, and your creditworthiness is in doubt — which in turn is making it hard for you to do business. What you need is evidence of ability to repay the money you already owe.

So does it help if your mother converts her loan into a share of the business? Not really, because she won’t get repaid anyway unless all your other creditors get paid first. So the terms of her agreement with you don’t affect their prospects of payment.

And in this case, the TARP is your mother.

OK.  But I think it actually would help me, as a business, survive — and would certainly increase the confidence lenders had in me — if my mother happened to have a GDP of $14 trillion when she became an official part-owner of my business.

No?

If that seems too cute by far, Felix Salmon likes the new plan, too, and says it in actual econo-speak.  I’ll try and translate, but he’s speaking pretty plain English, too (this is me suggesting you scoot over and read him; he’s very good).  Essentially, whether you like the new suggestion or not depends on how you looked at the original preferred stock plan.  If, like Krugman, you considered preferred stock to come with equity, then this plan makes very little sense — it’s a swap of what we have for what we have, only with increased risk of losing everything.  But Salmon makes the argument that preferred shares didn’t automatically confer ownership in the same way that common stock does, which seems to be generally true of preferred stock.  Preferred stockholders are exactly that — preferred — in the case of bankruptcy.  They (usually) get their money back just after bondholders, and certainly always before common stock holders.  In exchange, preferred stock usually doesn’t come with voting rights, and isn’t usually as profitable in the long term as common stock.

The glass-half-empty way to look at this is that, if any of the nation’s 19 largest banks go under, we’re trading stock that would have guaranteed us at least some of our money back for stock where we could very well and easily lose everything.

Glass half full?  We’re trading stock that gave us no say-so for stock that lets us start cleaning house, at least in a few places, and if we really get the house cleaned, we have a better chance of turning a profit.

I’ll just be over here drinking the rest of the glass.  Now that TARP is my mother, I assume my inheritance is going to be huge.