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Bad loans held by Spanish banks hit an 18-year high in April, data from the Bank of Spain shows,...

  • Monday, June 18, 2012, 6:29 AM ET
    Bad loans held by Spanish banks hit an 18-year high in April, data from the Bank of Spain shows, with 8.72% of loans over three months in arrears. The total number of nonperforming loans is 10 times the level of 2007, the peak of the property boom. The data explains why 10-year yields are surging.
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  • Ok now can we get more data...what are the reserves against these loans??? and what is the annual preprovision net revenue for these banks???
    18 Jun 2012, 06:34 AM Reply Like
  • This is an inevitable side effect of austerity. As more and more people are laid off from work, there will be more an more people who can't pay off their loans.
    18 Jun 2012, 07:20 AM Reply Like
  • Highly leveraged transactions without fundamental merit create asset bubbles. When these bubbles are exposed to truth and reality they implode.
    The implosion consumes all equity and turns debt into bad debt which consumes the equity of the lender....After the borrower goes bankrupt, the lender follows.

    Once the lender goes bankrupt Big Govt. assumes the bad debt and then it too either goes bankrupt or via massive inflation destroys the wealth and purchasing power of the frugal and prudent and bankrupts the middle class.
    18 Jun 2012, 07:31 AM Reply Like
  • This is the beginning ! Spainish home buyers are stuck with 1000s of buyers living on lots with pitched tents.. I've got a dozen Spaniards working for me in Panama as I don't need paperwork to use them . You can't believe the horror stories they are telling,but, I know there true !..

    The banks are carrying amounts way over the USbank portfolios had % wise..I don't think they can actually value there holding for a long while ! Years !. Spain needs at least a trillion,but, like Mervin King said yesterday and I've been saying for years on SA... Can't make insolvent banks solvent. Maybe you can keep poring liquidity there,but, solvency needs a TARP....... A trillion easy and then hope banks can get free money an buy soveriegns and follow Ben's plan. Then add oodles of hope !
    18 Jun 2012, 08:00 AM Reply Like
  • Spain house to person ration is 3x that of the US, it built 5x as many homes as England, on and on, can anybody say EXCESS. Now with prices falling 50% the game plan is to try and reduce excess inventory by banks offering 100% financing, can anybody say "HUH" , banks making it easier to buy homes in spite of having ballooned 10X the non performing loans on their books.

    Talk about throwing good money after bad, rubbing salt into the wounds. Sounds like the banks just need a "Holiday" take their losses and bull doze all the homes sitting vacant and then hit the reset button. As it stands right now Spain is drowning in debt and the to throw a life preserver of more debt doesn't seem like the right answer but its the solution it wants. A natural response considering with a condition that if you give the funds needed now it will enact all the required reforms "TOMORROW" but tomorrow never comes
    18 Jun 2012, 08:22 AM Reply Like
  • " it will enact all the required reforms 'TOMORROW' but tomorrow never comes"

    Actually that is untrue. Spain has enacted all the austerity reforms. That's what drove unemployment through the roof -- Rajoy's conservative gov't enacting all those austerity measures. Where Spain needs additional reform is in its banking sector which is underregulated and has therefore become exceedingly corrupt. But that would be financial reform, not austerity.
    18 Jun 2012, 08:34 AM Reply Like
  • Spain has had high UE for over 5yrs, well before the economic collapse, so their high UE is not totally as a result of austerity measures. The collapse of housing caused the majority of Spains problems because they over built to the extreme and when it imploded it took the economy with it.

    I dont recall discussing austerity, only the building and banking sector and so I do not disagree with calling for banking reforms which was why I pointed out they are "throwing good money after bad" offering 100% financing to a sector already 10x worse then in 07 as it relates to bad loans. Spains banking sector decline was primarily a result of over lending as was and is the case just about everywhere else.
    18 Jun 2012, 09:54 AM Reply Like
  • I would say that this goes beyond mere over lending: http://bit.ly/Lh7YLw That's as rotten as it gets.
    18 Jun 2012, 10:30 AM Reply Like
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