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Jim Middlemiss
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
It's deja vu all over again in the asset-backed commercial paper saga.
One year ago to the day that the Pan-Canadian Investors Committee first
claimed victory by announcing a "tentative" deal to restructure the
frozen $32-billion market, the committee has confirmed it has a new
"tentative" agreement that would lead to some investors being paid in
full and others left holding long-term notes that will pay back their
capital in eight years or so.
While negotiations were continuing into the evening, a spokesperson said
"the committee for third-party structured ABCP confirms the tentative
agreements reached with the governments of Canada, Quebec, Ontario and
Alberta to provide funding to support a restructuring of $32-billion of
third party asset-backed commercial paper. Details of the agreement,
which are broadly similar to those reported in the media since the
weekend, are currently being finalized. The committee will issue a news
releases at the appropriate time with relevant final details."
Retail investor Brian Hunter, who holds $660,000 of the frozen paper and
has been key to rallying retail investors, said: "We've been whacked so
many times by this thing. Each time you thought you were getting
somewhere. You get too skeptical. Until the cash is in my account, I'm
certainly not chilling any champagne."
"It's very difficult to polish a turd ... maybe these guys have done the
unthinkable. Maybe they actually polished a turd, who knows. If they do,
I will be very excited to get my resources back," he added.
On Dec. 23 last year, after missing a number of self-imposed deadlines,
the committee announced it had a deal in place to turn the short-term
paper into long-term notes, which would see investors repaid their
capital if they held them to term, about eight years.
Originally, Quebec pension giant Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec,
which holds $13-billion of paper, and Desjardins Financial Group was
also going to self-insure a tranche of those notes, and the rest was
going to be backstopped by a $14-billion margin facility put up by a
coalition of Canadian and foreign banks.
Since then, it has been a restructuring roller coaster, as credit
spreads blew apart and retail investors flexed their muscles demanding
to be paid, when the trusts holding the notes were turned into companies
and put into creditor protection under the Companies Creditors
Arrangement Act.
That lead to a side agreement where retail investors holding less than
$1-million worth of paper would be paid out by their investment dealers,
Canaccord Capital Corp. and Credential Securities.
The deal is expected to include a 14-month moratorium on collateral
calls on loans related to the notes, a widening of the spread-loss
triggers, which will reduce the likelihood of margin calls on the
leveraged loans that the paper depends on, and an additional
$3.5-billion in funding to backstop the notes from the government.
That's in addition to the $39-billion of collateral and margin facility
already in place to backstop the notes.
Originally, the committee was seeking $9.5-billion, but it's not clear
whether or how much the parties involved in the market are being called
upon to ante up more cash to backstop the notes.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin Campbell, who has been assigned to
the case, must still approve any deal, which will likely happen in the
first week of January, followed by a closing a week later.
Retail investors are expected to get paid 20 days later.
jmiddlemiss@nationalpost.com |
