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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2018/aug/13/erdogan-high-risk-path-is-surely-leading-turkey-to-the-imf
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| Erdoğan's high-risk path is surely leading Turkey to the IMF | Erdoğan's high-risk path is surely leading Turkey to the IMF |
| (3 months later) | |
| There is not an easy way for Turkey to escape its financial crisis but three measures that might contain the coming pain would be these. First, raise interest rates to try to put a floor under the plunging lira. Second, tone down the bellicose rhetoric and certainly don’t pick new fights with the US. Third, call the International Monetary Fund. | There is not an easy way for Turkey to escape its financial crisis but three measures that might contain the coming pain would be these. First, raise interest rates to try to put a floor under the plunging lira. Second, tone down the bellicose rhetoric and certainly don’t pick new fights with the US. Third, call the International Monetary Fund. |
| None of those actions arrived on Monday. The central bank lowered reserve requirements for banks, which may improve liquidity in the financial system for a short period but it kept the official interest rate at 17.5%. International investors knew how to read that decision. With inflation heading rapidly towards 20%-plus, it was a signal that Turkey is still refusing standard monetary medicine. | None of those actions arrived on Monday. The central bank lowered reserve requirements for banks, which may improve liquidity in the financial system for a short period but it kept the official interest rate at 17.5%. International investors knew how to read that decision. With inflation heading rapidly towards 20%-plus, it was a signal that Turkey is still refusing standard monetary medicine. |
| Then the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, repeated his angry analysis of who was to blame. The US has stabbed a fellow Nato member “in the back”, he said and economic “traitors” are at work. Meanwhile, any notion of summoning the IMF, and thereby awakening memories of past Turkish crises, remains politically unpalatable. The net result was a further 8% slide in a currency that has lost roughly half its value against the dollar this year. | Then the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, repeated his angry analysis of who was to blame. The US has stabbed a fellow Nato member “in the back”, he said and economic “traitors” are at work. Meanwhile, any notion of summoning the IMF, and thereby awakening memories of past Turkish crises, remains politically unpalatable. The net result was a further 8% slide in a currency that has lost roughly half its value against the dollar this year. |
| The medium-term consequences of Erdogan’s tough stance are not hard to guess. Local companies, overborrowed in US dollars, will struggle to repay their debts. Defaults will soar, pushing losses on to the banking system. Foreign capital, which has funded expansion to the point of economic overheating, will flee. Turkey, with a large current account deficit and an inadequate supply of foreign reserves, is poorly equipped to resist recession. | The medium-term consequences of Erdogan’s tough stance are not hard to guess. Local companies, overborrowed in US dollars, will struggle to repay their debts. Defaults will soar, pushing losses on to the banking system. Foreign capital, which has funded expansion to the point of economic overheating, will flee. Turkey, with a large current account deficit and an inadequate supply of foreign reserves, is poorly equipped to resist recession. |
| Erdoğan, with his comments about seeking “new alliances”, has hinted that he may actually think there is an easy route out. The trouble is, Turkey’s crisis is happening now, whereas any loans from Russia or China – who, in any case, have reasons not to inflame their own quarrels with the US – would arrive only slowly. One still has to assume that, one way or another, the IMF will eventually become involved, just as it did in Argentina in June. Quite how Erdoğan can credibly shift to such a position is anybody’s guess but it is the logical endgame. | Erdoğan, with his comments about seeking “new alliances”, has hinted that he may actually think there is an easy route out. The trouble is, Turkey’s crisis is happening now, whereas any loans from Russia or China – who, in any case, have reasons not to inflame their own quarrels with the US – would arrive only slowly. One still has to assume that, one way or another, the IMF will eventually become involved, just as it did in Argentina in June. Quite how Erdoğan can credibly shift to such a position is anybody’s guess but it is the logical endgame. |
| The only vaguely good news is that the contagion warnings are not flashing red. A few European banks are overexposed, but the lending problem is not system-wide. In a bigger crisis, investors would also be selling the currencies of other weak emerging economies. The South African rand is sliding but one cannot – yet – call it across-the-board panic. That may come, however. Erdoğan has chosen a high-risk path and markets have a habit of asking who else cannot live with higher US interest rates. | The only vaguely good news is that the contagion warnings are not flashing red. A few European banks are overexposed, but the lending problem is not system-wide. In a bigger crisis, investors would also be selling the currencies of other weak emerging economies. The South African rand is sliding but one cannot – yet – call it across-the-board panic. That may come, however. Erdoğan has chosen a high-risk path and markets have a habit of asking who else cannot live with higher US interest rates. |
| Clarity needed at Esure | Clarity needed at Esure |
| “Esure is a great business today and I am excited about the many opportunities we have to ensure we continue to be a great business in the future,” the founder, chairman and 30% owner, Sir Peter Wood, said in March. Has his enthusiasm waned? Five months later, Woods and Esure are “minded to recommend” a 280p-a-share, or £1.2bn, takeover approach from the private equity outfit Bain Capital. | “Esure is a great business today and I am excited about the many opportunities we have to ensure we continue to be a great business in the future,” the founder, chairman and 30% owner, Sir Peter Wood, said in March. Has his enthusiasm waned? Five months later, Woods and Esure are “minded to recommend” a 280p-a-share, or £1.2bn, takeover approach from the private equity outfit Bain Capital. |
| Bain, you would think, would want to keep Wood in harness in some role | Bain, you would think, would want to keep Wood in harness in some role |
| The proposed price doesn’t look terrific since Esure was valued at slightly more only 12 months ago. But it is a 37% premium to the share price last week, which is a level at which boards tend to roll over. To those shareholders who grumble that Esure floated at 290p in 2013, the directors will be able to point to the £300m of dividends paid since and the demerger of the price comparison website Go Compare. | The proposed price doesn’t look terrific since Esure was valued at slightly more only 12 months ago. But it is a 37% premium to the share price last week, which is a level at which boards tend to roll over. To those shareholders who grumble that Esure floated at 290p in 2013, the directors will be able to point to the £300m of dividends paid since and the demerger of the price comparison website Go Compare. |
| But investors will want clarity on a more important point. Bain, you would think, would want to keep Wood in harness in some role. After all, he founded Esure in 2000 and is the guru of general insurance, having also launched Direct Line in the 1980s. Would Wood sell all his shares to Bain? Or would he remain a player with a stake? If it’s the latter, it’s a significant point. Speak up – starting with Tuesday’s half-year results. | But investors will want clarity on a more important point. Bain, you would think, would want to keep Wood in harness in some role. After all, he founded Esure in 2000 and is the guru of general insurance, having also launched Direct Line in the 1980s. Would Wood sell all his shares to Bain? Or would he remain a player with a stake? If it’s the latter, it’s a significant point. Speak up – starting with Tuesday’s half-year results. |
| Musk’s claim does not wash | Musk’s claim does not wash |
| Tesla’s Elon Musk has defended his infamous “funding secured” tweet on the grounds that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had expressed repeated interest in being the main investor in a deal to take the electric car company private. “It was just a matter of getting the process moving,” he says. | Tesla’s Elon Musk has defended his infamous “funding secured” tweet on the grounds that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had expressed repeated interest in being the main investor in a deal to take the electric car company private. “It was just a matter of getting the process moving,” he says. |
| Sorry, but this doesn’t wash. There is a huge difference between the expression of an interest in a buyout and the completion of the legal paperwork and due diligence to make the deal happen. Only the latter justifies a “funding secured” label. From a regulatory point of view, Musk is in very hot water, as he is presumably realising. | Sorry, but this doesn’t wash. There is a huge difference between the expression of an interest in a buyout and the completion of the legal paperwork and due diligence to make the deal happen. Only the latter justifies a “funding secured” label. From a regulatory point of view, Musk is in very hot water, as he is presumably realising. |
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