Tag Archive for 'dubai'

Commercial Real Estate Is a ‘Time Bomb,’ Maloney Says”,on July 9th 2009 on Bloomberg
“The $3.5 trillion commercial real estate market is a ticking ”time bomb” that may lead to a second wave of losses at large U.S. banks, congressional Joint Economic Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said. About $700 billion in commercial mortgages will need to be refinanced before the end of 2010 and ”doing nothing is not an option,” Maloney, a New York Democrat, said at a committee hearing today. This ”looming crisis” may lead to significant losses for banks, force shopping center and hotel owners into bankruptcy, and impede economic recovery, she said.
The response by banks to this ”growing threat has been slow and inadequate,” said James Helsel, a partner at RSR Realtors in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and treasurer for the National Association of Realtors. ”The lack of liquidity and banks’ reluctance to extend lending are also becoming apparent in the increasing level of delinquent properties.” “

Come scrive il Nobel Paul Krugman, la situazione di Dubai può essere inserita in un triplice contesto: 1) l’inizio di una serie di default sui fondi sovrani, 2) lo scoppio della bomba ad olorogeria di qui sopra in versione Dubai, 3) un problema sui generis del solo Dubai.
Egli, supportato da Calculated Risk, pensa a una combinazione dei punti 2 e 3.
Willem Biuter suggerisce di non procedere ad un salvataggio dei creditori: Dubai World e Nakheel, pur essendo controllati dallo stato, sono società private, e il loro debito non rientra nella categoria di debito sovrano, o a garanzia statale. Come scrive, “The government of Dubai is under no legal or moral obligation to provide an ex-post guarantee of the debts of the Dubai World Group and Nakheel. The creditors will have to manage this contingency the way God meant them to: hoping for the best, but living with the restructuring and taking their losses.”
L’approccio di Buiter è condivisibile, in quanto favorisce la stabilità di lungo periodo diminuendo il moral hazard.
Come riporta infatti Bloomberg: “The request could also suggest that Abu Dhabi and Dubai have decided to seek to bolster long-term confidence in the market by forcing weaker parts of government businesses to take responsibility for bad decisions and could involve defaults at some Dubai firms”.

Dato che l’eventuale fallimento di queste società non comporterebbe alcun aumento del rischio sistemico (Krugman nota che “US bond prices are up right now, suggesting that the Dubai thing hasn’t raised expectations of default.), non avrebbe senso aumentare la fragilità di lungo periodo dei mercati stimolando ancor più l’idea del too big to fail: a far questo basta già la FED e il governo Obama.