A quién creemos?

Se pregunta con una pizca de ironía Alphaville.FT.com, después de que el Banco de España, justo después de la descalificación de Moody´s (ver post anterior) haya sacado una nota, eso sí, sin darse por aludido, rebatiendo a la Agencia y afirmando que las necesidades de capitalización son "sólo" de 15 mm (según Moody´s son de 50 mm € y hasta 120 mm, en casos extremos). Ni pa ti ni pa mí, se podría decir, pues esto se parece a las riñas sobre cuántos manifestantes había en la manifestación; según los organizadores, 1 millón, según el ayuntamiento de turno, 10 mil y gracias.
Moody´s en diciembre estaba de acuerdo con la valoración de 20 mm de €. ¿Qué le ha hecho cambiar de opinión?
Esta es la valoración de Moody´s, que extraigo de http://ftalphaville.ft.com/ :
Pero antes, les hago un resumen de las DOS razones principales consideradas por Moody´s para tomar la decisión:
1) (¿ya lo dije yo, se acuerdan?aquí y aquí) al exigir a algunas cajas una ratio de capital del 10%, en vez del 8%, esto les obliga a un mayor esfuerzo de captación  y/o de liquidación de activos, más cuando los activos admisibles a ese nivel de capital se ha hecho más exigente. Terrible: el tiro de Elena Salgado, por la culata, como yo había pronosticado. El exceso de seriedad en un momento de crisis ha provocado efectos demoledores. ¿Y quien se retrae ahora que se ha hecho el daño?
2) Que el déficit de las autonomías no está controlado, y ha superado con creces los objetivos del gobierno. 
Es curioso que el BE hable de emisiones para captar fondos, de 15 días para que las entidades presenten sus estrategias, etc. Porque, ¿de dónde va a salir ese dinero, quien va a comprar esas emisiones?
Observen que Moody´s degrada el FROB, piedra angular de todo el pla de reforma.
En fin, que muy mal huele esto. Huele a descomposición. Y huela a que ES y adláteres se ha equivocado de punta a punta poniéndose exigente en plena crisis, cuando no hay ni calderilla circulando. Menuda metedura de gamba.

Moody’s downgrades Spain’s rating to Aa2 with a negative outlook FROB’s Aa1 rating also downgraded to Aa2 with negative outlook

London, 10 March 2011 — Moody’s Investors Service has today downgraded Spain’s government bond ratings by one notch to Aa2 from Aa1. The outlook on the Aa2 ratings is negative. Today’s rating action concludes the review for possible downgrade, which Moody’s initiated on 15 December 2010. The main triggers for the downgrade are: (1) Moody’s expectation that the eventual cost of bank restructuring will exceed the government’s current assumptions, leading to a further increase in the public debt ratio. (2) Moody’s continued concerns over the ability of the Spanish government to achieve the required sustainable and structural improvement in general government finances, given the limits of central government control over the regional governments’ finances as well as the background of only moderate economic growth in the short to medium term.

The decision to assign a negative outlook to the rating reflects Moody’s view that the risks to Spain’s government finances remain skewed to the downside. Spain’s vulnerability to market disruption remains elevated given the high funding requirements, not only for the sovereign but also for the regional governments and the banks.

Moody’s has today also downgraded the rating of Spain’s Fondo de Reestructuracion Ordenada Bancaria (FROB) to Aa2 from Aa1 with a negative outlook as the FROB’s debt is fully and unconditionally guaranteed by the government of Spain.

Spain’s country ceilings for bonds and bank deposits are unaffected by today’s rating action and remain at Aaa (in line with the Eurozone’s rating). Spain’s P-1 short-term rating is unaffected by today’s rating action. RATINGS RATIONALE The considerations that drove Moody’s to place the ratings of the Kingdom of Spain under review on 15 December 2010 continue to be the rating agency’s main concerns and have triggered today’s rating action. Firstly, Moody’s continues to have concerns over the ultimate cost of recapitalizing the saving banks (“cajas”).

Although Moody’s acknowledges that the government’s recently announced acceleration of efforts to restructure the cajas is likely to strengthen the country’s banking landscape, the rating agency believes there is a meaningful risk that the eventual cost of the recapitalization effort could considerably exceed the government’s current projections — and Moody’s own earlier estimates from December 2010 (which were calculated using a minimum tier-1 capital ratio of 8% for all entities). Specifically, the government estimates the cost to be a maximum of €20 billion (less than 2% of GDP), which is based on the capital requirements as percentage of risk-weighted assets as of 31st December 2010.

However, Moody’s believes the overall cost is likely to be nearer to €40-50 billion, reflecting more than twice Moody’s earlier estimates of recapitalization needs of €17 billion because (1) the definition of eligible capital instruments has been tightened, and (2) capital requirements have been raised to a core capital ratio of 10% for those institutions with a limited private investor base and high dependence on wholesale funding. Indeed, Moody’s believes that, in a more stressed scenario, recapitalization needs could increase to approximately €110-120 billion. Secondly, the recently published budget execution data for 2010 revealed that the path to fiscal consolidation remains unclear for some of Spain’s regional governments.

Last year, 9 out of 17 autonomous communities breached the budget deficit target of 2.4% of GDP, some by a wide margin. This casts doubts over the ability of the central government to exercise sufficient control over the regions to ensure compliance with deficit targets. This year’s budget deficit target of 1.3% is significantly more ambitious than that of last year, and the effort required to implement it would be quite unprecedented for many regions. Moody’s expects that the regions will manage to reduce their deficits this year, but observes that most of the improvement will likely come from cuts to capital spending plus reduced personnel expenses due to the freeze in public-sector wages -neither of which are sustainable policies.

Moreover, there are no new policy initiatives to reduce the regions’ structural spending pressures in the areas of healthcare and education, beyond last year’s reduction in pharmaceutical costs and the replacement of only 10% of retiring public-sector workers. In addition to the regional government finances, the social security — which has traditionally recorded a surplus in Spain — also recorded a deficit for the first time since 1998, mainly driven by high outlays for unemployment benefits. This is unlikely to change this year given the outlook for the labour market. Under Moody’s base case assumptions, GDP growth will accelerate only moderately this year (to 0.8% from -0.1% in 2010) and the unemployment rate is expected to remain close to current levels.

Moody’s recognizes the government’s resolve in addressing the country’s key weaknesses, which is a key reason for limiting the downgrade to one notch. The government is accelerating the process of bank recapitalization and has just agreed a pension reform with the trade unions and employers’ association. An important reform to the system of collective bargaining is on the agenda for the end of March at the latest. This should be an important step towards gradually making the labour market more flexible. Moody’s also acknowledges that the government achieved the target set for the general government budget deficit in 2010 (9.24% of GDP versus target of 9.3%) and reduced its own central government deficit by a full percentage point of GDP more than the target (5.66% of GDP versus target of 6.7% in cash terms).

At around 60% of GDP in 2010, Spain’s public debt ratio is lower than that of several important peers, including Germany, France, the UK, Belgium and Italy. Even including the higher estimates for bank recapitalization, Spain’s debt ratio would remain lower than those of Italy (Aa2, stable) and Belgium (Aa1, stable). Moody’s continues to believe that Spain’s debt sustainability is not under threat, and its baseline assumptions do not anticipate a need for the Spanish government to ask for EFSF liquidity support. However, Spain’s substantial funding requirements — not only those of the sovereign, but also those of the regional governments and the banks — make the country susceptible to further episodes of funding stress.

Y aquí pueden encontrar el comunicado del Banco de España:
http://www.bde.es/webbde/es/secciones/prensa/Notas_Informativ/anoactual/presbe2011_666.pdf