华尔街从此走上坎坷路？
THINGS MAY START TO GET TRICKY FROM HERE
作者：英国《金融时报》弗朗西斯科·格雷拉(Francesco Guerrera)纽约报道
2008年7月16日 星期三
对华尔街的老板们要有同情心（如果你可以忘记他们丰厚的收入和奢侈的生活方式），因为这场金融危机将变得棘手起来。
与未来的任务相比——努力提升日渐稀薄的利润，同时穿行于仍旧变幻莫测的市场——进行巨额资产减记和筹集规模同样惊人的资金，似乎还算容易。
正是因为这个原因，银行界以L开头的热门单词，已经从“流动性(liquidity)”变为“杠杆(leverage)”——即用白水换Eyeopener的金融表达（为便于读者理解，Eyeopener指的是一种用伏特加和红牛饮料调配的鸡尾酒）。
受困已久的投资银行急切渴望将资金投入有解冻迹象的市场，从目前利润停止增长的局面中恢复过来。
毫不奇怪，高盛(Goldman Sachs)、摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)、美林(Merrill Lynch)和雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)都非常愿意增加资产负债表上的负债——或杠杆，以此促进利润的复苏。
阻碍在于，目睹了近来华尔街的风险管理失败之后，监管机构和股东并不那么热衷于对券商刚刚发生的风险放纵采用“以毒攻毒”的疗法。
事实上，包括美国财长汉克•保尔森(Hank Paulson)和纽约联邦储备银行(New York Federal Reserve)行长蒂姆•盖特纳(Tim Geithner)在内的政策制定者，一直在不厌其烦地敦促各银行摆脱风险资产，筹集资本，减少资产负债表的杠杆。
让事情愈加复杂的是，杠杠这个曾经的技术问题已经卷入了政治泥沼和愤怒的商业银行礼貌的游说之中。
对于雷曼和其它投行不必遵守商业银行严格的杠杆规定就可以向美联储借贷的事实，花旗集团(Citigroup)和摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)等投行人脉深厚的主管表示愤慨。
如果这一切听起来有点乏味，那是因为：厌恶金融行话和专门术语的人现在应该把脸转开。
不过，其他所有人都应该对此保持密切关注，因为杠杆之争将决定下一轮金融周期中的赢家和输家。
风险很大：如果借贷限制设得太低，可能就是在宣判，已经饱受折磨的投行未来多年都只能实现中等到较差的利润。
但如果采取宽松的杠杆限制，允许人们再次为了繁荣而对风险采取不顾一切的态度，华尔街可能就是在播下自我毁灭的种子。
迄今为止，监管者一直在走捷径——他们辩称，有关投行账面上能有多少负债的相关规定的最后定稿，将需要好几年，也可能是几十年。
他们是对的：在信贷危机之后肯定会出现的旷日持久的立法大战中，将由政治家来决定谁监管谁——我知道，这有点可怕。
但这并不意味着投资银行、对冲基金、私人股本集团以及其它渴望负债的机构没有在努力利用法律空白。
这场监管裁决竞赛中的第一步正在迈出。
在华尔街，受伤害较小的投行——高盛，或者还可以包括摩根士丹利——将准备放弃美联储的借贷“窗口”，以换取不那么严格的杠杆限制，这已经是一个公开的秘密。
不过，雷曼并不赞同这个观点。它承受空头突袭的能力依赖于：美联储的窗口确保它不会落得和贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)一样的结局。
同时，大型对冲基金和私人股本集团都在密切留意规避风险的投行所放弃的高杠杆领域，包括收购融资、证券化、资产支持证券等等。
这都是些市场不稳定的危险市场，但总要有人去做，因此，看到Citadel或百仕通(Blackstone)等大型专业机构涉足曾专属华尔街投行的业务领域，应该并不出人意外。
正如一位资深银行家最近所指出的，这场激烈的阵地争夺战，让金融服务集团一次次面临“令人头痛”的摊牌时刻。
在与过去几年举债轻松、回报巨大的日子吻别时，各家投行必须决定，自己到底想要何种业务模式。
它们有两种基本选择。
其一，他们可以单干，寄希望于过分热心的监管机构和灰心的商业银行不会束缚他们负有盛名的“赚钱能力”。
或者，他们可以寻求陌生人的帮助，与区域性或外国贷款机构合并，以便获得储户存款和其它“更保险”的业务。
我的预感是：经纪业某种形式的整合不可避免，但不会是在近期，尤其不会在流动性紧缩持续之时。
会出现何种交易方式，取决于危机以什么方式结束。
在保险公司长期债务及融资来源的诱惑下，能否说服高盛与美国国际集团(American International Group)合并？
这有可能，特别是如果杠杆限制意味着，高盛帝国里那些著名的交易员在行动时只能束手束脚。
雷曼是否会通过与外国集团（汇丰(HSBC)、桑坦德(Santander)）或寻求投行伙伴的区域性银行（富国银行(Wells Fargo)、美国银行(Bank of America)）合并，以克服其规模较小、国际影响力不足的缺陷？
除非雷曼的老板迪克•富尔德(Dick Fuld)能尽快校正前进方向，否则合并诱惑将很难抗拒。
我说过，本次危机的下一阶段将会很棘手。好好端详一下今天的华尔街吧，因为在这场动荡结束时，它可能将面目全非。
译者/董琴 陈云飞
阅读本文章英文,请点击 THINGS MAY START TO GET TRICKY FROM HERE . . .
THINGS MAY START TO GET TRICKY FROM HERE
By Francesco Guerrera in New York
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Pity- if you can forget their monumental pay packages and jet-setting lifestyles - Wall Street's bosses, because this financial crisis is about to get tricky.
Taking enormous writedowns and raising equally-staggering amounts of capital looks relatively easy when compared with the task ahead: navigating still-treacherous markets while trying to kick-start their firms' moribund earnings.
That is why, in recent weeks, the L-word of choice among banking types has shifted from "liquidity" to "leverage" - the financial equivalent of swapping glasses of water for shots of Eyeopener (for uncool readers, that is the vodka/Red Bull cocktail).
Long-suffering investment banks are eager to bounce back from the current profit doldrums by putting capital to work in markets that are showing signs of defrosting.
Unsurprisingly, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers would love to powercharge a recovery in earnings by loading up their balance sheet with debt - or leverage.
The snag is that, after witnessing Wall Street's recent risk-management failures, watchdogs and shareholders are not that keen on a hair-of-the-dog treatment for the brokerage houses' all-too-recent risk binge.
Indeed, policymakers, including Hank Paulson, the US treasury secretary, and Tim Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, have been tirelessly urging banks to get rid of risky assets and raise capital to "de-lever" their balance sheets.
To make matters even more complicated, the once-technical issue of leverage has become entangled in a morass of politics and lobbying courtesy of outraged commercial banks.
Well-connected executives at the likes of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase express indignation at the fact that Lehman and others have been permitted to borrow from the Fed without having to comply with the strict leverage limits imposed on commercial banks.
If it all sounds a bit nerdy, well, that is because it is: those who abhor financial jargon and technicalities should look away now.
Everybody else, however, ought to pay close attention because the fight over leverage will determine the winners and losers in the next financial cycle.
The stakes are high: if borrowing constraints are set too low, already-battered investment banks could be condemned to years of middling to poor profits.
But if loose leverage hurdles allow a devil-may-care attitude to risk to flourish yet again, Wall Street is in danger of planting the seeds of its destruction.
Regulators have so far taken the easy way out, arguing that final rules on how much debt investment banks can take on their books will not be finalised for years, maybe decades.
They are right: it will be up to politicians - scary, I know - to decide who regulates whom in the slow-burning legislative feast that is certain to follow the credit crunch.
But that does not mean that investment banks, hedge funds, private equity groups and other debt-hungry vehicles are not trying to exploit the legal vacuum.
The first moves in this game of regulatory arbitrage are being made.
It is an open secret on Wall Street that the less hurt among the investment banks - Goldman Sachs and, to a lesser extent, Morgan Stanley - would be prepared to forgo the Fed's borrowing "window" in exchange for less draconian leverage limits.
That view is, however, not shared by Lehman, whose ability to withstand bear raids relies on the fact that the Fed window ensures it will not end up like Bear Stearns.
Meanwhile, large hedge funds and private equity groups are keeping a keen eye on the highly-leveraged areas - buy-out financing, securitisations, asset-backed securities and the like - vacated by risk-shedding investment banks.
Those are volatile and dangerous markets, but someone's got to do and it would not be a surprise to see large and professional operators such as Citadel or Blackstone entering businesses once reserved for Wall Street firms.
As a senior banker recently put it, this frantic jostling for position is giving rise to a series of "come to Jesus" moments for financial services groups.
As they kiss goodbye to the easy debt and the gargantuan returns of the past few years, investment firms have to decide just what business model they want to pursue.
They have two basic choices.
Either they go it alone in the hope that their famed "earnings power" will not be crimped by over-zealous regulators - and frustrated commercial banks.
Or they seek the comfort of strangers and merge with regional or foreign lenders in order to gain access to savers' deposits and other "safer" businesses.
My hunch is that some form of consolidation in the brokerage sector is inevitable, but not imminent, especially if the liquidity squeeze persists.
What kinds of deals will come about depends on how the crisis plays out.
Could Goldman be persuaded to merge with American International Group, lured by the insurer's long-term liabilities and funding sources?
It is a possibility, particularly if leverage limits mean that the famed traders living in the House of Goldman are fighting with their hands tied behind their backs.
Will Lehman make up for its smaller size and limited international reach by getting together with a foreign group (HSBC, Santander) or a regional bank (Wells Fargo, Bank of America) looking for an investment bank?
Unless Dick Fuld, Lehman's boss, can right the ship pronto, that temptation might be hard to resist.
I said that the next phase of the crisis was going to be tricky. Take a good look at Wall Street today, because by the time the shake-up is over, it might look a whole lot different.经济观察,华尔街从此走上坎坷路
