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Thursday 5 March 2020

Caporegime says: These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years.

The Caporegime (from Wikipedia)
The Godfather had many friends with loyalty.

Peter Clemenza:
These things gotta happen every five years or so,... ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one.
In contrast with the consecutive downfalls of global stock prices in last week, it has been on a bumpy ride this week in US market particularly, partially because of Fed rate cut which was unexpected and little explained and Super Tuesday's outcome.

Meanwhile, it is a time to back in reality, isn't it?  After Fed rate cut and Mr.Biden's revival on Super Tuesday, there is no pragmatic solution combating Coronavirus. What is a kind of solution is a vaccine development whose production is expected after months to more than a year. So far, it looks good news are lasting and shadow of bad news ahead.

Flybe, one of the largest regional airlines in Europe, is dragged into administration. Even before the Coronavirus outbreak, Flybe has 40 years of its history and had expected to have a rescue deal to manage the difficult situation. Its employees' jobs are at risk.

China is pushing their business back to normal as much as possible, but the recovery is not enough for global economy. Outbreaks in other parts of the world are spreading faster and faster.
After all, consumers' demands are fading day after day as Coronavirus spread, except for panic buying at some supermarkets. The new James Bond film, which was planned to be released on April, was postponed until November.

The atmosphere surrounding the world is becoming reminiscent of the financial crisis in 2007-2008. The financial crisis 2007-2008 stemmed from credit crunch. The recent financial uncertainty is caused by the fear of epidemic and its economic effects. But the epidemic could not only lead travel industries including Airline companies like Flybe into the dark, but also cause domino effects in other industries, including financial industries.
Airline operators are financed through Structured finance, so called Aviation finance or Aircraft finance. They rise funds in both equity and debt for multi-billion dollars to purchase their Aircrafts to operate. The expected revenue is a source of the repayment and is supposed stable without such pandemics or wars. Reduction of the scheduled flights leads to their revenue cuts. Apart from the basic measures, business insurance or collaterals to avoid delinquency, they may have to cut labor costs. It has started already. (See below)

Sky News: Virus turbulence could give airlines cover to make cuts
Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline and the third-largest in Europe by stock market value, unveiled a cost-saving programme in which it will suspend new hires and offer employees unpaid leave in an attempt to mitigate the financial impact of coronavirus.
...
And it was revealed that KLM, which is the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM, Europe's fifth-largest carrier by market value, is to delay all IT and property projects that have not yet got underway and will be suspending hiring in certain departments.

Even such big names like Lufthansa and KLM struggle due to the Coronavirus outbreak, needless to say that the smaller operators suffer badly. In case that cost cutting is not sufficient, the subordinated debt repayments are first affected and the operator maybe forced into insolvent when senior debt repayments are failed. The insurance companies have to recover the loss, but the pandemic bring such unfortunes for virtually all the airline operators and travel related industries as chain effects. It can be a global credit crunch that we don't know the exact figure yet.

The financial markets have experienced some sharp up and downs for the last 10 years, but they are nothing more than the financial crisis 2007-2008, aren't they?  The Caporegime knows what happens now, perhaps.

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