THE NEW LEVERAGED LOAN SYNDICATION MARKET

Over the past ten years, commercial lending has been transformed from a one-off, bilateral "market" in which issuers maintained one or more separate banking relationships into a capital market in which one or more underwriters structure and price loans for syndication to groups of investors. This market-driven evolution has been most dramatic in the leveraged lending segment (defined as loans priced at LIBOR plus 150 basis points or more), where wide margins have attracted a large and growing field of underwriters, intermediaries, and investors.
Liquidity is the overriding theme in today's syndicated loan market, making the market a more user-friendly one for corporate borrowers and deal sponsors. As a result, a record number of corporate issuers are taking advantage of the syndicated loan market to finance strategic transactions or simply to reduce their borrowing costs. Deal sponsors, too, are tapping the market to finance leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and acquisitions at a pace not seen since the late 1980s. But, although acquisition pricing has reached cash flow multiples that recall those of the late '80s, equity contributions by sponsors are larger and credit structures are more conservative.
For banks and other investors, reduced loan pricing and more flexible credit structures have been balanced by much greater access to a large volume of diversified assets, as well as the ability to manage asset-specific and portfolio risk more effectively. As a result of more effective portfolio management strategies, lenders today are less vulnerable to credit problems with individual issuers or a given industry segment, and the bank market as a whole should be much less subject to disruption than it proved to be in the early 1990s.     

DAYLIGHT AND INVESTOR SENTIMENT: A SECOND LOOK AT TWO STOCK MARKET BEHAVIORAL ANOMALIES

Kamstra, Kramer, and Levi (2000, 2003) describe two stock market behavioral anomalies associated with changes in investor sentiment caused by daylight saving time (DST) changes and seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the hypothesized effects, DST changes and SAD affect asset prices by changing investors’ risk aversion. Although changes in the timing or amount of daylight are correlated with unusual stock market returns, I present evidence they do not cause those unusual returns. Instead, seasonal patterns in market‐related information during the sample period are the likely cause of the correlation between stock market returns and DST changes or SAD.     

THE INFORMATION CONTENT AND USEFULNESS OF THE TERM STRUCTURE OF THE NEW ZEALAND BANK BILL MARKET

This paper applies the rationality concept and expectations hypothesis to test the information efficiency of the term structure of the New Zealand bank bill market. Weekly data is collected from June 1986 to November 1988. The sample period is partitioned into two subperiods by the sharemarket crash in October 1987. The empirical results suggest the presence of a time varying risk premium. This is reflected by the significantly positive volatility measure in the first subperiod and the significant interest rate level variable in both subperiods. The forecast errors correlate significantly with the growth in money supply and overseas interest rate variables. Factors other than market information inefficiency could be responsible for the significant correlation; namely the impact of the sharemarket crash on market perceptions about inflation expectations and the non-simultaneous data problem in calculating the differential costs of borrowing. Despite the rejection of the joint hypothesis, forward rates are found to have information about future spot rates beyond that contained in past spot rates, and are able to predict interest rates at least 30 days ahead.     

THE CAPITAL STRUCTURE PUZZLE: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE

Since the formulation of the M & M irrelevance propositions 40 years ago, financial economists have been debating whether there is such a thing as optimal capital structure—a proportion of debt to equity that maximizes current firm value. Some finance scholars have followed M & M by arguing that both capital structure and dividend policy are largely “irrelevant” in the sense that they have no significant, predictable effects on corporate market values. Another school of thought holds that corporate financing choices reflect an attempt by corporate managers to balance the tax shields and disciplinary benefits of greater debt against the increased probability and costs of financial distress. Yet another theory says that companies do not have capital structure targets, but instead follow a financial pecking order in which retained earnings are preferred to outside financing, and debt is preferred to equity when outside funding is required. In reviewing the evidence that has accumulated since M & M, the authors argue that taxes, bankruptcy (and other “contracting”) costs, and information costs (the main factor in the pecking order theory) all appear to play an important role in corporate financing decisions. While much if not most of the evidence is consistent with the argument that companies set target leverage ratios, there is also considerable support for the pecking order theory's contention that firms are willing to deviate widely from their targets for long periods of time. According to the authors, the key to reconciling the different theories—and thus to solving the capital structure puzzle—lies in achieving a better understanding of the relation between corporate financing stocks (leverage ratios) and flows (specific choices between debt and equity). Even if companies have target leverage ratios, there will be an optimal deviation from those targets—one that will depend on the transactions and information costs associated with adjusting back to the target relative to the costs of deviating from the target. As the authors argue in closing, a complete theory of capital structure must take account of these adjustment costs and how they affect expected deviations from the target.     

新兴的信贷衍生商品证券化市场

本文译自The Banker2001年7月号The Birth of a NeW Market一文,编译过程中有一定的补充和删节.资产证券化本来是成熟市场处理不良资产的重要手段之一,信贷衍生商品则是随着衍生商品技术的发展和市场规模的扩大而产生的新型金融工具,其价值日益受到重视.目前,金融工程师正致力于将资产证券化与信贷衍生商品结合起来,即通过对信贷衍生商品进行证券化提高资产的流动性,同时为投资者提供能满足其特殊需要的投资对象.尽管信贷衍生商品市场还处于发展的初期,但已展现出所有银行资产都能够证券化的诱人前景.当然,其中蕴含的高风险也对风险管理者提出了严峻的要求.     

THE MARKET PRICING OF NET OPERATING LOSS CARRYFORWARDS: IMPLICATIONS OF THE TAX MOTIVATIONS OF MERGERS

An empirical analysis of the market pricing of net operating loss carryforwards (NOLs) and the ability for tax considerations to contribute to mergers and the substantial merger premiums often observed by target firms is presented. The restrictive anti-merger tax-transfer provisions of Section 382 of the Tax Reform Act of 1976 (TRA) serve as the legislative vehicle through which performance differentials of NOL and non-NOL firms are measured. The results of the study are consistent with the hypothesis that NOLs are at least partially priced in the absence of a merger, a fact that suggests that tax-motivated mergers may be more myth than reality. Since the anti-merger tax-transfer penalties contained within the Tax Reform Act of 1986 merely represent incremental increases over those of the TRA, the results of the study remain relevant in the current legislative environment.     

关于建立国有商业银行贷后管理新框架的设想

贷后管理是银行防范信贷风险的一个重要步骤.随着入世后国有商业银行面临的新形势,加强和规范自身信贷管理的紧迫性显得日益重要.本文首先对国有商业银行贷后管理问题进行回顾,分析了存在的问题和原因,并由此引出建立贷后管理新框架的必要性;然后提出了构建国有商业银行贷后管理新框架的主体思路,包括:开发信贷人力资源,打造一支高素质的具有现代管理和经营理念的信贷队伍;实施立体式贷后管理,填补岗位设置的漏洞,防范道德风险;对贷款客户实行分类管理,明晰权、责、利关系,增加新的利润增长点;制定表格化文本及覆盖贷后管理全过程的制度,使贷后管理流程规范化,并便于操作.     

A NOTE ON INTEREST RATES AND THE RISK OF BANK AND SAVINGS AND LOAN STOCK

This study examines the relationship between interest rates and the risk of bank and savings and loan stocks. Implied standard deviations from call option prices are used as risk estimates of the financial institutions’ stocks. Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between the risk of depository institution equities and the general level of interest rates. In addition, an upward shift in their risk occurred in late 1982, coinciding with several events that were important to the financial industry (the Penn-Square Bank failure, the Mexican debt crisis, and the passage of the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act).