why I don’t like co-cos…or, (more) evidence investment bankers are on the dark side
Investing is conceptually very simple but emotionally very difficult.
Under most conditions, professionals can resist the Dr. Frankenstein-like impulses of investment banks to create bizarre security hybrids. Not at the top of the market, though. There’s something in the air that makes portfolio managers throw away their pocket protectors and revel in the purchase of the trashiest securities.
PMs will rue these buys for the rest of their careers–which may, incidentally, be quite short periods of time if they don’t recover their senses and sell the stuff on while a market for them still exists.
One of my favorites in this genre was a convertible bond issued in 1993 by Hong Kong-based New World Development, an indifferently managed family-owned property conglomerate. It carried no coupon and was convertible on undisclosed terms into shares of a mainland Chinese company that did not yet exist.
And you ask me why I’m not a fan of investment bankers.
As it turned out, the issue met with high demand despite its dubious character–a sure sign that the markets were in the grip of speculative fever. Right afterward, I was chatting about it with a highly skilled colleague, who confessed she had actually taken part in the deal. Her reasoning? In her peer universe there might be a half-dozen offerings during the year that would make or break performance versus competitors. She felt she couldn’t take the chance that the deal would not only be successful but would trade up strongly in the aftermarket. She didn’t want to be left in the unusual (for her) position of eating competitors’ dust.
co-cos, the brokers’ latest creation
Contingent convertibles are more recent spawn of the investment banking tendency to birth nightmarish creatures.
The idea is that the vehicles, known as “co-cos,” would be issued by financial companies, especially banks, that are required to maintain minimum levels of equity capital. They start out as bonds. But if the issuer’s financial condition deteriorates beyond a certain level, they automatically convert into equity. Therefore, investment banking proponents argued, they should be considered as equity by the regulators even before conversion. (True to form, when the original idea was floated, the intention was to not specify in the offering documents what circumstances would trigger conversion.)
not a winner…
Co-cos have never taken off.
The obvious flaw, other than that no one would know what would prompt conversion, is that the buyers would be bond portfolios. They’d be reeled in with the promise of higher-than-average coupons.
If the issuer’s capital ratios deteriorated, its stock would sag significantly. If conversion of the co-cos followed, that would leave large amounts of stock in the hands of PMs whose client agreements don’t allow them to hold equities. So they’d have to dump the securities right away into a depressed market, sending the issuer’s stock lower and making its problems worse. In fact, anticipation of conversion might launch the stock of the issuer into a severe downward spiral.
Also, the Bank of International Settlements said the idea wouldn’t fly. Finally, the co-co idea also came too close to the disastrous demise of their close cousins, hybrid bonds.
…until now
It now looks like co-cos may actually have a use, according to the Wall Street Journal. The buyers won’t be private investors, however. They’ll be the governments of Spain and Portugal, which will use the vehicles to inject money into ailing banks.
Why use co-cos? Three reasons:
–the injections of money will look like investments, not the bailouts they really are,
–Spain and Portugal will get securities in return for the money they pour in, so their government deficits won’t increase, at least on paper, and
–Madrid and Lisboa won’t appear to be partially nationalizing the weak banks, which is what buying equity directly would mean.
I’ve never seen this before–an instance where a crackpot, top-of-the-market, caveat emptor ploy by investment bankers to boost their bonus pool is actually useful. It’s nothing like what the i-bankers envisioned, of course, but still…