金融机构因祸得福？

The Gold At Crunch's End



尽管债券市场危机让大投资银行的收益报告充满了变数，但有一个领域可以让它们稳操胜券：自身债务额下降所带来的利润。



这些投资银行可以借此记入数亿美元的利润，从而帮助它们抵消因对杠杆收购做出的融资承诺而需付出的数十亿美元支出。



现在，一些银行可能也会从它们自身的霉运中获得类似的收益。Analyst's Accounting Observer称，花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)、美国银行(Bank of America Corp.)和摩根大通(J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.)等金融巨头都已经在今年初表示，将开始对自身的部分债务按照市场价进行统计。这些公司将在下个月公布第三季度业绩。



这也意味着它们的利润将因今年夏季信贷危机期间债务价值的下降而增加。Analyst's Accounting Observer表示，这些公司第三季度的收益报告中出现因债务而来的收益将一点也不令人奇怪。



花旗集团、摩根大通和美国银行的管理人员不予置评。



这些经纪公司和银行记入此类收益并无不当或不妥。它们执行的会计准则允许这种做法。但一些投资者对此颇有微词，称不应改变原准则而允许记入这类收益。



该会计方法的原理是：比如某家银行发行的1亿美元债券的价值下降了5%，即500万美元。根据这些银行和经纪公司采用的新会计准则，一些债务是根据市场价计算的，而不是按照历史成本计入。因此债券价值的下跌意味着这家银行的债务减少了500万美元。目前的价值9,500万美元和当初1亿美元之间的差额就相当于收益，将会反映到损益表中，从而提高利润。相反，如果债券价值上升，则意味着银行的债务增加，从而导致利润下降。



这些银行的任何收益都可能会在原本令人堪忧的这个财季带来一个惊喜。银行可能不得不冲减对杠杆收购做出的融资承诺的价值，并需要增加不良贷款的准备金。



本周初，花旗集团分析师凯斯•霍诺维茨(Keith Horowitz)将他对美国银行第三季度的每股收益预期从1.20美元下调至0.85美元，称原因在于近期金融市场的动荡和这些银行可能需要因消费者贷款业务而增加贷款损失准备金。



上周晚些时候，雷曼兄弟(Lehman)分析师贾森•戈德伯格(Jason Goldberg)将花旗集团的第三季度每股收益预期从1.12美元下调至1.05美元，将摩根大通的每股收益预期从1.08美元下调至1.01美元。



由债务所带来的收益尽管在总体市场低迷的情况下只是杯水车薪，但这种情况还是再次引发了早就存在的关于是否应允许记入这类利润的争论。公司用这种方式获利的机会只是最近才出现的，原因是新会计准则允许企业对其债务采用市场价计算。



反对记入此类所得的人担心，这会导致收益质量的下降，并可能让公司高管找到一条操纵收益的新途径。



对于这种情况，穆迪公司(Moody's Corp.)敦促债券持有人忽略这种新的利润。这家评级机构表示，在收益中加入此类所得会产生有违直觉和误导性的业绩，它不认为这是核心的可持续性收益。



甚至一些支持采用市场化合理价值的人也对公司利用自身负债额的下降记入收益表示了担忧。财务会计标准委员会(Financial Accounting Standards Board)委员莱斯利•塞德曼(Leslie Seidman)说，允许这种结果反映到损益表中的做法不够成熟。财务会计标准委员会采用了允许公司记入这类所得的会计准则。



不过经纪公司的管理人员为此类所得进行了辩护，称这并不只是会计技巧。贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)首席财务长萨姆•莫利纳罗(Sam Molinaro)在公司的收益电话会议上说，这些所得是真实的，交易的另一面的确有人出现了损失。



莫利纳罗还说，它的公司可以很轻松地使用金融工具消除或是对冲贝尔斯登自身信贷价值变化所产生的影响。但他表示，公司并未这样做。贝尔斯登后来承认，出售给投资者的结构性票据价值的变化给公司带来约2.25亿美元所得。



允许公司利用自身债务的下降提高利润的想法在当初会计准则的制订者对此进行讨论时就曾引起过争议。但一些公司，尤其是金融业中的企业表示，如果规则制订者鼓励使用市场价，就应该允许企业对所有金融资产和负债使用这一准则。此外，金融企业还表示，要求它们对衍生合约的价值采用市场价没有意义。衍生合约可以对冲公司自身债务的价值。



宾西法尼亚州立大学(Pennsylvania State University)会计学教授爱德华•凯兹(Edward Ketz)说，这会带来会计上的搭配混乱，结果也是违反直觉的。



凯兹说，这也要求投资者重新考虑应如何评价一家公司的负债权益比率。在过去，我们会想如果一家企业出现问题，负债比率可能会上升，但现在如果它们表现不好，债务的价值会出现下降。



David Reilly





While the bond-market mess made the earnings reports for the big investment banks feel like a game of roulette, there was one area where they were almost guaranteed to win: profits generated by the falling value of their own debt.



That allowed the firms to book hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, helping to offset multibillion-dollar charges they had to take on commitments to fund leveraged buyouts.



Now some banks may be set to similarly benefit from their own misfortune. Financial titans such as Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which will report third-quarter results next month, all opted earlier this year to start applying market values to some of their own liabilities, according to the research service the Analyst's Accounting Observer.



This means they, too, might see a boost to profit from declines in the value of their debts during the summer credit crunch. 'It might not be unusual at all to be seeing gains on debt issued hitting earnings in the third quarter,' the Analyst's Accounting Observer said.



Officials at Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America declined to comment.



The brokers and banks are doing nothing wrong or improper in booking such gains. The accounting rules as they stand allow the practice. But some investors are crying foul, saying the rules shouldn't have been changed to allow for such gains.



Here is how the accounting method works: Say $100 million of bonds issued by a bank falls in value by $5 million, or 5%. Under new accounting rules adopted by the banks and brokerages, some liabilities are valued at market prices instead of being recorded at their historical cost. The decline in the bonds' value means the bank's liabilities fell by $5 million. The difference between the current price of $95 million and the original $100 million creates an equivalent gain that ends up on the income statement and boosts profits. Conversely, if the bonds gained in value, it would mean the bank's liabilities went up, producing a loss.



Any gains at the banks could potentially offer one bright spot in what is expected to be an otherwise gloomy quarter. Banks likely face write-downs in the value of commitments that they have made to fund leveraged buyouts and will need to increase reserves for soured loans.



Earlier this week, Citigroup analyst Keith Horowitz cut his third-quarter earnings-per-share estimate for Bank of America to 85 cents from $1.20, citing the recent financial-market turmoil and the likely need for the bank to increase loan-loss reserves because of its exposure to consumer lending.



Late last week, Lehman analyst Jason Goldberg lowered his third-quarter earnings estimate for Citigroup to $1.05 a share from $1.12, while reducing his estimate for J.P. Morgan to $1.01 from $1.08.



The emergence of debt-induced gains, even if they only offer a slight respite from overall market woes, has rekindled longstanding debate about whether such profits should be allowed. The opportunity for companies to benefit in this way only recently emerged, thanks to new accounting rules that allow companies to apply market prices to their own liabilities.



Opponents of the practice of booking such gains worry that they erode earnings quality and possibly open a new way for executives to massage earnings.



In the wake of the brokers' results, Moody's Corp. urged bondholders to ignore this new kind of profit. The ratings firm said the inclusion of such gains in earnings 'can produce counterintuitive and misleading results' and that it doesn't consider them 'to be core, sustainable earnings.'



Even some supporters of the use of market, or fair, values remain uneasy with companies booking gains on declines in the value of their own debt. 'It was premature to allow the effect of that to come through the income statement,' said Leslie Seidman, a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the body that adopted the rule that allows companies to book these gains.



Yet brokerage executives defended the gains, saying they were more than just an accounting gimmick. During his firm's earnings call, Sam Molinaro, Bear Stearns's chief financial officer, said 'the gains were real,' adding that 'there's someone on the other side of that trade who lost money.'



Mr. Molinaro added that his firm could have easily used financial instruments to cancel out, or hedge, the impact of any change in the value of Bear's own credit standing. But the firm ruled that out, he said. Bear later recognized about $225 million in gains from the change in value of structured notes it sold investors.



The idea of allowing companies to profit from falls in their own liabilities proved controversial when accounting rule makers debated the idea. But many companies, especially in the financial sector, argued that if the rule makers were going to encourage the use of market values, they should allow companies to use them for all their financial assets and liabilities. In addition, financial firms argued that it didn't make sense to require them to use market prices for the value of a derivative contract that may be hedging the value of a company's own liabilities, which would be recorded at its cost.



That would have produced an accounting mismatch, said Edward Ketz, an accounting professor at Pennsylvania State University. Still, the outcome is 'counterintuitive,' he added.



It may also require investors to 'rethink how we are going to evaluate a company's debt-to-equity ratio,' Prof. Ketz said. 'In the past, we would think that if a firm was having problems they would show a higher debt ratio, but now if they are performing poorly, the debt is going to be going down in value.'
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