Treasury Secretary Geithner has released his plan to mop-up the toxic assets held by banks that threaten their solvency and the global financial system. Accordingly, the plan purposes that private equity firms partner with the Fed to purchase bank assets at some discount set by the private firms at auction. Then the Fed will leverage the purchase six-fold to buy more bank assets and assume all the risk of leverage. In other words, private firms will set the price and then put up half the initial purchase price. The Fed will then put up non-recourse loans to purchase six times more debt at the same price to be owned by the joint venture partners. If the deal works private equity splits the booty equally. If the deal fails, the government loses upwards to six times taxpayer's money and private equity loses only its original equity match equal to 1/6 the total loss.
Flabergasted? Don't be. Very often you can cut a deal where you get to set the price and your partner puts in six times your money and you split the profit. If these deal terms don't underscore why the government should not handle your money and why the government should stay out of business, what does?
Other deal terms are that the Fed will designate the private equity players, at least initially. Could it be that the Fed is creating another pass-through mechanism to simultaneously bail out or reward its friends? If so, look for Goldman Sachs (GS), Merrill, Blackstone (BX), Carlye Group, Texas Pacific Group, and perhaps Bear Stearns to be players. Look also for the typical MOS of some Structured Investment Vehicle, not much different from the Maiden Lane III SIV, to backstop or divert money where it needs to be--by gratuitous selection that is. Oh, and never mind that Private Equity may be joined by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA and Private Equity article by Financial Times) as Private Equity at present is having a bit of a liquidity crunch with their own deflated, illiquid assets.
In short, the Geithner Toxic Asset Plan is just another bank bailout and footnote to this era of 'Dark Capitalism" where profits are reaped and losses socialized in an ever transparent way.
