‘‘I despair at times at why the equity markets can’t see how serious the credit crunch is’, said one senior credit analyst at an investment bank. ‘They just trade off the day-to-day newsflow’.
This interview from yesterday’s Financial Times reminds me of last July, when I noted how financial markets seemed to have become divorced from reality.
My musing then was prompted by the fact that Access had offered $12bn for the Lyondell business. This struck me as an extraordinary amount of money. Net debt was forecast at $22bn and 5.5 times current ebitda. And although the deal has now closed, I understand that the underwriting banks have still not been able to offload the debt into the market. This is a clear sign of the problems in credit markets to which the FT is referring.
Equally worrying is the fact that Wal-Mart, probably the best managed company in the world, yesterday reported that US sales were ‘below expectations’ during January. If Wal-Mart are now being surprised on the downside, then it is clear that things are really bad in US retail markets.
The FT goes on to warn that debt markets are growing ‘increasingly pessimistic about companies’ ability to withstand the bursting credit bubble and a possible recession’. Equally, the Wal-Mart warning means that US domestic chemical sales in the first half of the year will probably be much weaker than normal seasonal trends would suggest.
The prudent course for CEOs and CFOs must be to ignore the rose-tinted glasses still being worn in equity markets. They need to review January’s performance for early signs of weakness. They also need to test current budgets against an assumption that credit markets will get worse. Unfortunately, this week’s Plastech bankruptcy is probably not an isolated event, but just the first of many.