framboise mécanique: Credit Default Swaps Holders Likely to Force GM into Bankruptcy

Mais à part ça l'innovation financière c'est quelque chose de merveilleux... Comme le disait Paul Volcker, le seul exemple "récent" d'innovation financière utile c'est l'ATM.

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Credit Default Swaps Holders Likely to Force GM into Bankruptcy

via naked capitalism de Yves Smith le 11/05/09

It only takes opposition by 10% of the bondholders to stymie an out-of-court restructuring of GM. The FT believes that there are enough bondholders who, via being net short GM bonds via credit default swaps, have good reason to block a negotiated outcome and force the automaker into bankruptcy. And that poses risk to the economy, since there are meaningful odds that the fast track solution of a 363 sale will be opposed successfully, producing uncertainty as to when GM will exit bankruptcy and putting further strain on the supply chain. GM is a big actor in its ecosystem, and too much damage to its supply chain will hurt all US based car-makers, including the transplants.

Here we have financial technology trumping what is in the collective best interest. Creditors when possible prefer to avoid bankruptcy court if a settlement can be reached out of court (it saves costs, reduces uncertainty, and minimizes the risk of loss of customers and key employees during the BK process).

From the Financial Times:

Hedge funds and other investors stand to make billions of dollars on credit insurance contracts if GM declares bankruptcy, a prospect that is complicating efforts to persuade creditors to agree to a restructuring plan for the automaker, analysts say.

Holders of $27bn in GM bonds have until June 1 to decide whether to swap their debt for a 10 per cent equity stake in the company as part of an offer that would give the US government 50 per cent of the shares, a United Auto Workers union healthcare fund 39 per cent and existing shareholders 1 per cent.

However, analysts say the chances the proposal will be accepted have been diminished by the large number of credit default swap (CDS) contracts written on GM's debt.

Holders of such swaps would be paid in the event of a default – but would lose money if they agreed to restructure GM's debt. For investors who own bonds and CDS, this could create an incentive to favour a bankruptcy filing.

According to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, investors hold $34bn in CDS on GM. Once off-setting positions are considered, the DTCC estimates CDS holders would make a net profit of $2.4bn if GM were to default.

The opposition of 10 per cent of bondholders is enough to derail the proposal, which has already triggered protests from investors who argue it unfairly rewards the UAW at the expense of bondholders.

"You have every incentive not to agree," said one bondholder, a large credit hedge fund. "You would be locking in a loss if you did. It isn't only the 'shark' capital; it will be the mom and pop mutual funds who will oppose this deal. "

Moreover, as we have written at length elsewhere, the idea that GM can have a quick and easy bankruptcy looks like a fantasy. The article continues:

"Chrysler looks like a simple two-car funeral compared to the traffic jam of assets and liabilities and contracts at GM," said the credit research boutique CreditSights. "Chrysler provides limited parallel."

John Dizard, in a separate story, explains why a 363 sale is likely to be blocked:

The "363" plan (a provision under the Bankruptcy Act that allows the company to sell assets) is the means for a "good GM" funded by the government to buy assets from the existing company, or "bad GM". The plan, based on a review of some fairly clear precedents from past cases, is a legally flawed way to disregard the rights of certain creditors – in GM's case, their public bondholders....

The 363 loophole, (really 363(b)), was intended to give a judge the authority to allow for the quick disposal of wasting assets, or assets that are not part of the core business, without waiting for creditors to vote their permission. It was not intended as a way to impose what is called a "sub rosa plan of reorganisation". That is a plan of reorganisation of the entire company on which creditors do not get a vote.

In GM's case, the "sub rosa plan" is to sell the valuable assets, with accompanying union contracts, to a new, "good" GM, and leave the money-losing assets in the original company, which is left in the street to bleed cash and die.

GM's law firm, Weil Gotschal, has attempted to use this section of the bankruptcy code in the past, and had only mixed success in doing so. For example, a bankruptcy judge in New York ruled against a similar Weil Gotschal tactic in the Westpoint Stevens case, saying: "The fact that a transaction including a 363(b) sale of assets may ultimately be in the best economic interests of a debtor's various constituencies does not authorise the court to ignore the creditors' rights and procedural requirements of Chapter 11."

Here's how I believe the GM bankruptcy case will play out. The government, the UAW and GM are in a good position to "forum shop", or find a bankruptcy judge who will be sympathetic to the government-UAW plan. That judge may be in New York (convenient for Weil Gotschal, headquartered in New York's GM building), or Michigan (hometown advantage for GM). That judge will almost certainly grant the request of GM, the union and the government for the 363(b) sale.

Then the bondholders do some forum shopping of their own. They could well find a judge in a Federal district court (one level up from bankruptcy court) willing to grant a temporary restraining order blocking the 363(b) sale.

Given the facts of the case, and the precedent on the side of the bondholders, I think it's quite possible that the judge will issue a TRO, and set a hearing on a motion by the bondholders to enjoin the sale.

That will be the end of the good news for the bondholders. The judge will read through the law, and the facts, and then ask an unpleasant question of the bondholders: what's your alternative?...

Their problem is that the US government will be offering not just working capital for GM during its bankruptcy, but "exit financing" for GM's emergence from Chapter 11. That is hard to get now on commercial terms, even on a smaller scale than would be needed for GM.

There are other problems with the government/union plan. The suppliers to the remaining "good" brands will need to spread their fixed costs over fewer parts, and transferring and revising all the contracts is logistically very difficult. Getting effective, decisive management, when the major shareholders have made unconvincing pledges to be hands off and avoid conflicts... very uncertain.

The bondholders still fight a hard, continuing, rearguard action, since they have little or nothing to lose, and want to preserve their rights and legal precedents for future reorganisations.