Thursday, Dec 20, 2007
A 1 Billion USD Synthetic CDO by Clifford Chance - Whoopsie
Clifford Chance: Recent European Cash CDO Transactions
If you thought you knew what was coming, brace yourself. Here is a list of SOME of the work ONE of the big global law firms has been doing.
Please note the Rebalanced synthetic securitisation in respect of a reference pool of asset backed securities and credit default swaps having an aggregate notional amount of US$1,212,961,347. Notes were issued in both Euro (EUR56,000,000) and US Dollars (US$28,000,000)
• Client: Westpac Banking Corporation, Swap Counterparty
Goodbye Westpac!
Posted by lvmreader @ 02:16 AM (510 views) Add Comment
7 Comments
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1. lvmreader said...
Just so we can refresh our memories, a synthetic CDO is like getting paid as long as houses don't burn down, or rather that people don't default on their mortgages.
The folks who were Lloyds names found out that things aren't always as straightforward as you always get paid. This time, the "victims" (the effective names" are municipal councils, pension funds and unfortunately "thrifts" (high street retail banks) who dabbled in the arcane. Knock-on effects will damage the viability of plenty of other firms which technically had no direct exposure, much in the same way as a large earthquake in Chile taking out a copper producer can affect people thousands of miles away.
Everything is hunky dory until a large number of people or corporations start defaulting - a bit like now in fact. Then all the "suckers" who took a slice of the synthetic CDO are on the hook for a lot more than they signed up for.
If you thought you saw Enron spawn lawsuits, well imagine watching a fight in infant school and then watching any of Tyson best 10 fights live. That will be the scale of the difference.
http://www.creditflux.com/glossary/s.htm
Synthetic CDO
A CDO in which the underlying credit exposures are taken on using a credit default swap rather than by having a vehicle buy physical assets. Synthetic CDOs can either be single tranche CDOs or fully distributed CDOs. Synthetic CDOs are also commonly divided into balance sheet and arbitrage CDOs, although it is often impossible to distinguish in practice between the two types.
2. A Saver said...
Thanks ivmreader, can you explain whether Westpac is particularly at risk, compared to the other banks? I save with them in NZ....
3. Scaddaye said...
US$1,212,961,347 is just over a Billion not a Trillion
4. Japhy Rider said...
Umm, surely that's 1 Billion, not 1 Trillion.
5. Moley20 said...
Ivmreader,
Have thought about forwarding this to the Australian media? I'm sure there are investors who will want to know that there shares in Westpac are worthless.
Just out of interest how did you come across this info?
6. lvmreader said...
Sorry folks, was having too much coffee late at night and got excited! And have been seeing enough numbers with 1x10^12 in them recently.
7. lvmreader said...
I did a Google search and came across this information. No doubt Clifford Chance may want to pull this soon