Central bank holdings of Irish government bonds

In the discussion around the Promissory Note/Long-Term Government Bond swap it quickly became clear that the benefits of the new arrangement are dependent on how long the Central Bank of Ireland holds the €28 billion of bonds it has received. 

On Thursday, the ECB also confirmed the substantial bond holdings that it and the various National Central Banks (NCBs) in the Eurosystem of Central Banks (ESCB) accumulated as part of the now-defunct Securities Market Programme.  Here are the figures published by the ECB along with the nominal amount of a percentage of 2012 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 2012 General Government Gross Debt (GGD) using IMF estimates.

Here is the list of Irish government bonds from which the €14.2 billion held by the ESCB will be drawn. Click to enlarge.

As previously pointed out an agreement in the Eurogroup made in February 2012 will see the income profits the NCBs make on their Greek bonds recycled back to Greece.  In November 2012 this was confirmed as:

A commitment by Member States to pass on to Greece's segregated account, an amount equivalent to the income on the SMP portfolio accruing to their national central bank as from budget year 2013.

As can be seen in the second table the average annual interest coupon on Irish government bonds is close to five percent.  The NCBs will be paying for the facility to hold the bonds at the ECB’s main refinancing rate, which is currently 0.75%.  Even allowing for other costs, and a possible transfer to the reserves of the NCBs, it is clear that a significant profit will be made by the NCBs on the interest from these bonds.

When the Greek arrangement was re-affirmed in November 2012 it was estimated that it would reduce Greek government debt by 4.6 percentage points of GDP by 2020.

Relative to GDP the Irish holdings are about half as large as those of Greece though the average maturity is one year longer.  It is possible that if a similar arrangement was put in place for Ireland the amounts involved over the next few years could be from 1.5% to 2% of GDP – a very significant sum.

The €14 billion of bonds held by the ESCB are likely to generate close to €700 million of interest payments this year, though it is likely that a significant portion of bond due to mature on the 13th of April will be in the holding.  A profit on the interest for the NCBs of around €500 million (0.3% of Irish GDP) is possible this year, and this will decline as the bonds mature.

The balance sheet of the Central Bank of Ireland (.xls) does not indicate that it holds a significant portion of these bonds.  From the time the SMP was instituted in May 2010 “Securities of other euro area residents in euro” held by the CBoI increased from €16.5 billion to €20.7 billion by the time the SMP was shelved in March 2012.  Both transactions and revaluation effects will have contributed to the increase.  The asset item “General Government debt in euro” has never had a non-zero figure reported in the balance sheet.

I appeared before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on EU Affairs last Thursday and this issue was raised during the meeting (full transcript).  My comments in response to the query are below the fold. [Note: The ECB published the actual figures on the amount of bonds at the same time as the meeting began but it is clear that the estimated figures in the public domain were “in the ball park”.]

Mr. Seamus Coffey: I will take the issue of the ECB bondholdings first and, maybe, then move on to some subsequent issues.

The Chair has introduced a useful topic. The figures in this regard are unconfirmed, although a set of figures was presented to the Governor of the Central Bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform recently and he did not deny them. I think we can take it that they are in the ball park.

The ECB had what it calls the securities market programme where it bought Government bonds. It started in 2010. The programme ended in March of last year. The programme is now over but its legacy is substantial government bondholdings by the various national central banks in the eurozone which carried out the policy on behalf of the ECB. Most of the activity took place after the July 2011 European Council meeting that finally admitted that a Greek default was necessary but, perhaps, did not go far enough. Because private sector involvement was finally admitted in the case of Greece, to try to cushion some of the consequences for the other countries that were under pressure the ECB stepped in and really stepped up its bond buying over the coming months. Irish bonds formed part of that. It looks like they had somewhere in the region of €18 billion to €22 billion of Irish Government bonds bought in a fairly short period. Most of them focused on what we might call "the short end." These were bonds coming to maturity over a fairly short period - two, three or four years. Since then, there have been two sovereign bond maturities in Ireland. There was a November 2011 bond that matured and also a March 2012 one. Many of the bonds that were bought might have matured and been redeemed, but the figures would still have been quite large.

At a eurogroup meeting in February last it was agreed that the national central banks would recycle some of the profits they were making on these bonds back to Greece. As attempts were made to bring down their debt-to-GDP ratio, one approach taken was that there was this money flowing out of Greece and maybe they could get it to flow back in. In the main, as we now will be aware, when central banks make profits they return them back to their sovereign. In our case, we expect the Central Bank to make substantial profits on Government bonds, but these merely happen to be our own Government's bonds and we hope the Central Bank can hold on to them for as long as possible because the interest we pay on them to the Central Bank is then recycled back to the Exchequer. If there is a profit on any interest that is paid on the Irish bonds now held by the national central banks across Europe, it can be returned to the exchequer in those countries and we hope, perhaps, they will return it to us.

The issue is made up of two elements. The Chair spoke about the profit that the central banks will make. The profit is made up of the annual interest - coupon - they get every year and the capital appreciation. There is not too much we can do about the capital appreciation. The central banks will require a certain return for taking on the risk of buying Irish Government bonds, and this was particularly the case in the autumn of 2011 when sovereign bond markets were quite heated.

We can focus particularly on the annual interest, which might not grab as large a headline as focusing on the capital but which sums can be quite large. Here, the central banks are making a cheap and easy profit. The central banks get access to funds at a very cheap rate. They can get the funds at the ECB rate and they have bought these Irish Government bonds. They might have made a profit by buying them at 70 bps or 75 bps, but they are making that profit off somebody else. They are making that profit off the person who sold the bonds. That really is of little concern to us. We borrowed €100 whenever the bonds were issued, say, in 2006 or 2007, and we will pay back €100. The central banks themselves are not making a profit off us on that basis. What they are making a profit on will be the interest that we will now pay on an annual basis on those bonds. Perhaps we should target and try to get back the interest, which is the substance of the Greek deal where the interest that is paid on bonds is then recycled back to the Greek central bank which can return it to the Greek exchequer.

The sums have potential to be reasonably large. Given some of the redemptions, there could be - I merely pick a figure - €12 billion of these bonds still being held by the national central banks across Europe. At a rough 5% annual coupon, one is talking about €600 million of interest per year. We have a massive interest bill, approaching €8 billion. Some €600 million of that could be going to the national central banks of Europe. The money they are borrowing from the ECB for this facility could be costing them €100 million and, potentially, there is a €500 million per annum profit or income for the national central banks across Europe on their holdings of Irish Government bonds. The central banks will benefit because they got to buy them cheap but as of yet, there has been no benefit for Ireland. We were not in bond markets in July and August 2011 when these bonds were being bought. This was, apparently, done for our benefit. It was to try to stabilise European bond markets but as of yet, we have got no real benefit because it is only subsequently that we got back into markets. This potential €500 million is there and could be recycled back to the Central Bank of Ireland which would give it back to the Exchequer. It would be a welcome boost to the public finances.

What’s next on our agenda with the ECB?

Patrick Honohan’s recent appearance at the Oireachtas Finance Committee included the following exchange.

Deputy Kevin Humphreys:  “The ECB purchased significant amounts of distressed euro sovereign debt in the secondary bond market in 2010 and 2011 through the security market programme. I understand that approximately €200 billion worth of bonds are being held to maturity. It is estimated that between €15 billion and €20 billion of Irish bonds were bought, mostly at distressed prices well below par.

The Barclays Capital report of January 2012 stated that about €19 billion of Irish Government bonds were being held by the ECB. Is that the correct sum?

We heard a lot about how Franklin Templeton made huge returns by buying Irish bonds at low prices. It is difficult to estimate the profits the ECB will make on the capital proportion of these bonds bought through the SMP but it could be in the range of €3 billion to €5 billion. The problem is, and I asked about this in private session before and was given short shrift, we do not know what the ECB profits may be because the ECB will not tell us. The Governor sits on the board, however, so does he know and will he tell us?”

Patrick Honohan:  “I know how much Irish paper is held by the ECB in the security market programme. I could try to calculate the profits.”

Kevin Humphreys:  “Am I far off in my calculations?”

Patrick Honohan: “I would steer the Deputy away if I thought he was. I think that more information about the SMP holdings will be provided. The SMP has terminated as a programme and the reasons of market sensitivity that caused it not to be disclosed would fade away. At present, however, I am not at liberty to give out those numbers.”

Here is the set of Irish government bonds that was in issue around the time the Euro System of Central Banks (the constituent elements of the ECB) were making these purchases under the Securities Market Programme in the second half of  2011.

It is likely that the ECB purchases were focussed on the short end of the market.  The first two bonds on the list have been redeemed.  The next on the list is the bond maturing on the 18th of April coming.  A bond swap last July reduced the amount outstanding on this bond which now is just over €5 billion.  The ECB are likely to be significant holders of this bond and also of the remaining €8 billion of the January 2014 bond.

The November 2012 Eurogroup meeting included the following agreement:

A commitment by Member States to pass on to Greece's segregated account, an amount equivalent to the income on the SMP portfolio accruing to their national central bank as from budget year 2013.

Can we get this too?

Interest costs under the “debt deal”

As explained in the previous post it is not the size of the government debt that has a direct impact on the public finances; it is the interest cost it generates (though the size is obviously a big factor in that) 

What was in play with yesterday’s restructuring was a €25 billion Promissory Note debt.  It was a €25 billion debt on Wednesday, it is a €25 billion debt today and it will be a €25 billion debt in 2053.  But because of inflation not all €25 billions are created equally.

Anyway, the debt in question generates two interest costs for the State:

1. The interest on the central bank funding which carries an interest rate equals to the ECB’s main refinancing rate.
2. The interest on the borrowings used to pay down the central bank liquidity.

Here are two tables that showing some hypothetical the interest costs of the old Promissory Note and new Long-Term Government Bond arrangements until 2033. 

These are only hypothetical scenarios designed to gauge the relative difference in the cost of each approach rather than a definitive estimate of the cost of each.  There are a number of simplifying assumptions made.

• The ECB interest rate is expected to rise from 0.75% to 3.00% over the next six years and stay at 3.00% thereafter.
• The ‘margin’ of Irish government borrowing over the ECB rate is assumed to be constant 3.25%.
• All interest is paid from current revenue.
• Borrowings are only made to fund capital payments.  This only impacts the Promissory Note arrangement and from each €3.1 billion annual payment the Central Bank profit is subtracted as it is returned to the Exchequer and also the external interest cost of the ELA as it is assumed that is paid from current revenue.  This keeps the borrowing at €25 billion in both cases so we can assess the interest cost.
• The discount rate used is 6%.

As we are looking for relative differences the assumptions are not hugely significant as both scenarios are played out under the same set of assumptions.

First the Promissory Notes:

And the new Long-Term Bond arrangement:

The interest mix of both changes.  In the first case it is because the Promissory Notes/ELA costing the ECB rate is paid off with new government borrowings at the “market rate”, while in the second case the Central Bank funding at the ECB rate is reduced through the Central Bank selling the bonds it holds thereby making the interest payable to a third party. By 2034 both arrangements are identical in this setting - a debt of €25 billion with an annual interest cost of €1.56 billion (assumed interest rate by then is 6.25%) - as all the Central Bank funding is repaid

So what do we find in? In nominal terms the interest costs are

• Promissory Notes: €27.0 billion
• Long-Term Bonds: €20.6 billion

Getting the present value of the interest payments gives:

• Promissory Notes: €14.3 billion
• Long-Term Bonds: €10.3 billion

The interest cost under the new arrangement is around 30% lower.  This is a gain to the State of the new change which arises from having access to borrowings at the lower ECB rate for longer.  It increases from c.7 years to c.15 years.

The are other gains from the new arrangement.  The above just reflects the interest cost of each arrangement.  The accounting treatment of the Promissory Notes meant they had a very large impact on the deficits over the coming years.  That has now been reduced.  Also the new arrangement means that the debt doesn’t have to be rolled-over until the first of the new bonds matures in 2038 significantly reducing the medium term funding needs of the State. 

The is little doubt that the new arrangement is anything other than a gain for the State.  And unless your expectations were incredibly unrealistic (or more accurately based on fantasy), yesterday’s announcements were pretty much as good as could have been hoped for given the institutional constraints faced.

“Legacy of Debt”

Lots of talk about a “legacy of debt” in response to yesterday’s re-arranging of the Promissory Notes/ELA framework.  First up, governments don’t repay debt, they roll it over.  And, as well as the size of the debt, there are two things that matter for debt rollovers:

• average maturity
• average rate of interest

Today’s announcement does not change the size of the debt but the maturity and interest rate changes are very significant (and beneficial in case there is any confusion).

Yesterday, Ireland was faced with the prospect of carrying a debt of €25 billion on the Promissory Notes and needed to roll that over with payments of €3 billion every year at whatever the best available rate at the time was.

At the end of the Promissory Notes (which would probably have been around 2022) the debt would still exist and what would need to be rolled over would have been the borrowings undertaken in the interim to meet the €3 billion annual repayments.  This legacy of debt was always going to exist and would have needed to rolled over in 2025, 2035, 2045 or whenever.  Government debt is not extinguished, the burden of carrying it (the interest) is eroded through growth and inflation.

Yesterday’s announcement offers some significant benefits for Ireland on both fronts.  Firstly, the average maturity has been extended to an average of 34 years.  This means the debt has to be rolled over far less frequently and through that reduces risk.  Under the current arrangement there would be €25 billion of debt being paid off in chunks of €3 billion and these would quickly accumulate into a total of tens of billions that would need to be frequently rolled over depending on the nature of the borrowings used to fund the annual payments.

The new arrangement postpones this roll over to an average duration of 34 years.  Rolling over €25 billion of debt in 2020 could present significant difficulties.  Rolling over €25 billion of debt on a staggered basis between 2038 and 2053 will be far less onerous.

The new arrangement also offers the significant interest rate benefits.  Under the Promissory Note arrangement debt with a very low net external cost of 0.75% (the ECB MRO rate) was transformed into much more expensive debt (EU/IMF loans at 3.3%) at a rate of €3 billion per annum. 

The net external cost remains at 0.75% but the rate at which the debt is transformed into more expensive debt has been significantly reduced.  As a result of the Central Bank of Ireland selling the bonds it receives as part of the swap this will happen at a rate of €0.5 billion per year up to 2018, €1 billion a year from then until 2023 and €2 billion a year thereafter.

The €25 billion of Promissory Notes would have been turned into full interest-costing sovereign debt by around 2022.  Today’s announcement means that the full €25 billion will not become fully interest-costing until around 2032.  We have gained because the debt with a net external cost of the ECB MRO rate is now available for longer.

Future generations were always going to have a “legacy of debt” of €25 billion.  What yesterday’s announcements have ensured is that they will have access to lower interest rates for longer and will be faced with rolling over the debt less often.  In the arena of public debt both of these are a win.

Here are some figures since 2008:

• 2008: €10.9 billion
• 2009: €15.4 billion
• 2010: €11.8 billion
• 2011: €10.2 billion
• 2012*: €7.0 billion
• 2013*: €3.4 billion

This figures will give a “legacy of debt” of €58.7 billion.  This is more than €30 billion greater than the total in question in yesterday’s restructuring.  What are these figures?  They are the underlying primary deficits (the deficit net of interest costs and banking measures) that the state ran from 2008 to 2011 and the projections of what the primary deficit will be for 2012 and 2013.

This is the excess of government expenditure on public sector pay, intermediate consumption, social transfers, capital formation and subsidies for the current generation over the tax revenue the government is raising from the current generation.  Over a six- year period the government is spending nearly €60 billion more on us in services and transfers than it is collecting from us in taxes and charges.  Why is no one concerned about this “legacy of debt” for future generations?

If we could borrow this money with a zero-interest perpetual bond there would be no need to worry about future generations.  They would have to pay nothing for our borrowings.  This highlights that for governments it is not the amount of debt that matters.  With governments debt doesn’t matter, deficit spending does.

The debt only matters insofar as it generates an interest cost.  If this money has to be borrowed at 4% it will cost future generations over €2 billion a year in interest for the privilege of us spending more on ourselves than we are willing to pay in taxes.  Is this a legacy we are willing to impose on future generations?

Deficit-, debt- and expenditure-impacting banking measures

A recent post over on Notesonthefront has attracted a lot of attention on “the cost of the banking crisis”.  The figures from Eurostat show that Ireland contributed 42% of the EU total and have been widely quoted including this prominent piece in The Irish Examiner

42% of Europe’s banking crisis paid by Ireland

Ireland has paid 42% of the total cost of the European banking crisis, at a cost of close to €9,000 per person, according to Eurostat.

This is not the correct interpretation of the Eurostat figures.  The Eurostat figures used to support the claim give one impact of the banking crisis on public finances, that is:

1. The impact on the flow of annual government deficits

It is not the case that this reflects the full cost of the banking crisis.  As will be discussed below not all of the measures introduced in response to the banking crisis are deficit impacting.  An additional impact that could be considered is:

2. The impact on the stock of the gross government debt

There is no reason to expect #1 to be the same as #2.  There may be transactions with the banking sector that are counted as deficit increasing but if they are funded from existing resources they will not add to the stock of debt. 

It will also be the case that there may be transactions which are not counted as deficit increasing but if funded with borrowed money they will add to the stock of debt.

Eurostat have produced figures on #1 as they can measure the revenue and expenditure flows on an annual basis.  However, they will not produce statistics on #2 for the simple reason that money is fungible.  Governments borrow money because their overall expenditure exceeds their revenue.  It is difficult to attribute changes in debt to a single expenditure item because reductions in any expenditure would reduce the need to borrow.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t attempted though!

The Eurostat figures show that between 2008 and 2011, measures related to the banking crisis contributed €41 billion to Ireland’s general government deficits.  By the end of 2011, the government had contributed around €63 billion to the banking sector and, of this we can guess that around €47 billion was with “borrowed” money (essentially it is non-NPRF money, but the assumption is that this expenditure increased borrowings).

The above paragraph shows a third, a more complete, measure of the impact of the banking crisis on the public finances:

3. Total expenditure incurred by general government as a result of the banking crisis.

Again Eurostat are not going to produce statistics on this as much of the expenditure will be by public investment funds (such as the NPRF) or by special purpose vehicles (such as NAMA).  A lot of these are “off-balance sheet” transactions.

So for Ireland, at the end of 2011, the figures were:

1. €41 billion
2. c. €47 billion
3. €63 billion

The first figure has received lots of attention but it is actually the smallest.  The second figure is a bit of a guess and although the largest the final figure could yet be under-stated. 

Number 3 will be clouded by the use of special purpose vehicles which initially keep the expenditure outside the government sector.  NAMA has spent €32 billion acquiring loans with a nominal value of €74 billion from our delinquent banks.  NAMA is not going to lose €32 billion but a shortfall of, say, €5 billion is possible on its operations which will have to be made good with expenditure by the government.

In Ireland in 2011 #1 makes up about two-thirds of #3.  In other countries the gap between #1 and #3 is likely to be even greater.  In part, this is down to the type of bailout adopted in Ireland, rather than the total cost.

For example, we know that the UK has contributed £66 billion to just two banks: Lloyds and RBS.  That is around €80 billion which would count in #3 (full expenditure) but the figure for the UK in the Eurostat deficit data is just €11 billion.  Where did the other €69 billion go?

To answer this question we must explore what Eurostat measured when they provided figures for the deficit-impacting measures introduced in response to the banking crisis.  This all comes back to a Eurostat decision published in July 2009.

The key is whether a measures is considered as a “financial transaction” or a “capital transfer”.  Financial transactions are not deficit impacting; capital transfers are deficit impacting.  The impact of both in the debt is not objective, while their impact on expenditure is unambiguous.  So what is a “financial transaction”?  Per the Eurostat decision:

The valuation of financial transactions: In principle the ESA 95 provides for financial transactions (which do not impact on the government deficit) to be recorded "at the transaction values, that is, the values in national currency at which the financial assets and/or liabilities involved are created, liquidated, exchanged or assumed between institutional units, or between them and the rest of the world, on the basis of commercial considerations only" (paragraph 5.134).

However it is acknowledged in paragraph 5.136 that "in cases where the counterpart transaction of a financial transaction is, for example, a transfer and therefore the financial transaction is undertaken other than for purely commercial considerations, the transaction value is identified with the current market value of the financial assets and/or liabilities involved".

It does, of course, leave something of a grey area but we can see that if a financial transaction is done at the “current market value” it does not impact on the government deficit, whereas if it happens above the “current market value” the transaction value is identified and the amount above that is considered a capital “transfer”. 

The Eurostat decision goes through different forms of banking support and shows whether they impact on the deficit or not.

1. Recapitalisation operations
2. Lending
3. Guarantees
4. Purchase of assets and defeasance
5. Exchange of assets
6. Classification of certain new bodies
7. Recording of certain transactions carried out by public corporations

Eurostat did not need to provide a separate decision for the general government gross debt measure it produces.  The debt is just the sum of all of the liabilities of the general government sector.  It does not matter what the money is used for.  All that matters is whether a liability exists or not.

For example, when the Promissory Notes were created in 2010 they were classed as a “loan to government” from Anglo/INBS and would immediately be added to the general government gross debt.  There was some issue of whether they would count in the 2010 deficit but the counter transaction to the loan was recorded as a “notional capital transfer” as the government promised to repay a €31 billion loan without first receiving the money from the bank as is the case with a typical loan.

Here is the full set of recapitalisation payments made to the banks since 2009, classified as “financial transactions” or “capital transfers”.

The payments under financial transactions were not deficit-increasing, whereas those recorded as capital transfers were deficit increasing.  It remains to be seen what value can be realised through the sale of the assets acquired through the financial transactions. 

There have been some sales already.  In 2011, €1.1 billion was realised from the sale of a 35% ordinary shareholding in BOI, while in January 2012 the €1 billion contingent capital note in BOI was sold at close to par.  There was also a transaction in 2010 that saw €1.7 billion of the preference shares in BOI converted into ordinary shares.

It can be seen that 75% of the capital transfers total arises from the Promissory Notes issued in 2010.  No other country has used such a scheme to prop up a bust bank and the loan loss figures mean that any mechanism devised would have been recorded as a capital transfer.

The transactions are split between those undertaken by the NPRF (directed by the Minister for Finance) and those undertaken by the Exchequer (directly by the Minister for Finance).

All of the financial transactions involving preference and ordinary shares in AIB and BOI were done through the NPRF.  It should be noted that the €3.5 billion of preference shares in both AIB and BOI bought in 2009 by NPRF was funded with €4 billion from the NPRF and a “front-contribution” of €3 billion from the Exchequer to the NPRF.  All the contingent capital notes transactions as well as the ordinary shares in PTSB and Irish Life were funded, and now held, by the Exchequer.

Most of the capital transfers were provided by the Exchequer but the €6 billion capital transfer provided to AIB in July 2011 was split with €2.3 billion coming from the Exchequer and €3.7 billion coming from the NPRF.  This €3.7 billion from the NPRF was a deficit-increasing expenditure (though didn’t impact on the debt as it came from pre-existing funds).

So has Ireland carried 42% of the total EU cost of the banking crisis?  Impossible to say.  We do know that Ireland has incurred 42% of the deficit-impacting measures introduced in response to the crisis.  But that is not the same thing as the total cost. 

In Ireland’s case, the Promissory Notes have pushed up the capital transfers to an extraordinarily high figure relative to other EU countries.  In fact the explanatory notes to the data say (on page 12) that:

The only case where government liabilities increased much more than government assets is Ireland. This can be explained by the fact that most interventions have been immediately recorded as deficit-increasing government expenditure and not as financial transactions.

Most EU countries have generally recapitalised their banks using financial transactions (purchase of shares and other instruments).   Ireland didn’t have any money to buy anything in Anglo and, as stated above, Anglo was nursing such loan losses that all efforts to keep it solvent were going to be recorded as capital transfers anyway.

Throughout the EU it remains to be seen what the assets acquired through these the financial transaction approach to recapitalising their banks will actually be worth.  If losses relative to the purchase price are crystallised on the sale of these assets then the difference will be recorded as a capital transfer and Ireland may not be such an outlier.

How much of the £66 billion pounds provided to Lloyds and RBS will be returned to the UK Exchequer? Will they get back much of the £14 billion (€17 billion) capital contributions that Lloyds through Bank of Scotland(Ireland) and RBS through Ulster Bank have made to their loss-making Irish subsidiaries?  In total, the UK has made a cash outlay of around €145 billion to rescue its banks.  See question on “current level of support” in this set of FAQs.

For the moment though, Ireland is extreme when it comes to the deficit-increasing impact of the banking crisis.  It makes a good headline and the extent and cost of the disaster in Ireland will always be high relative to other EU countries.  But it should not be thought that other countries have escaped lightly from the banking crisis.  They have simply gone about it in a different manner and haven’t used Promissory Notes.  The true cost of this period will only emerge over the next decade or longer when their investments and special purpose vehicles are unwound.

Where was the Xmas “surge” in Retail Sales?

The CSO have released the December 2012 Retail Sales Index.  There is something missing from the data – the much heralded “surge” in retail sales that apparently took place around the Christmas period.  Here is the core retail sales index which excludes the Motor Trades.

There was an increase in December but only marginally.  The trend in retail sales is up but this data do not reflect what was feted as “the best Christmas for retailers since 2007”.  Here it might be a little instructive to use the unadjusted series that just looks at the amount of retail sales without taking seasonal factors into account.  This chart has the unadjusted series for core retail sales (with December 2008 equal to 100).

Unsurprisingly there is a spike in retail sales each December.  At 94.2, this year’s December peak was higher than each of the last two years (92.5 in 2010 and 93.3 in 2011 using the base in the chart) but was below both 2008 (100) and 2009 (94.7).

Maybe we are not looking in the right place.  It would be great if the CSO provided a resource that allowed us to create selected sub-indices from the categories provided.  The retail sales shown in the above charts include fuel, furniture, hardware, medicines and other categories which were likely excluded when Retail Excellence Ireland were making their seasonal claims.  These items only make up about one-fifth of the indices shown above so their effect is unlikely to be significant.

Although limited we can use one of the indices to check for the retail surge.  Non-food sales in Department Stores are only about 1/12th of the above indices but might be expected to reflect the broader pattern in Christmas shopping.  Here are the unadjusted series.

That seems more like it.  The volume of non-food sales in Department Stores in December 2012 was indeed the highest since 2007.  In fact, volume was nearly 20% higher than 2008.  However, the value index was identical.  See here.  The adjusted series also shows a jump last month.

And this also shows that the trend in sales in Department Stores has been positive since about April of last year.  However, apart from Department Stores it is hard to find evidence of the Christmas surge.  Sales in bars did jump 5% in December but the underlying trend in this sector is unmistakeable.

The retails sales of electrical goods (computers and peripherals, televisions, radios and DVD players, games consoles and software and telecommunications equipment) has been positive in recent months (in volume terms at least). 

The recent jump was due to the digital switchover in October rather than any pre-Xmas exuberance.  Even still, the volume in this category in December was up 4% on last year, though the value of sales was down by around 1%.

It looks like the warning at the end of this post that “the plural of anecdote is not data” is borne out by the above data.

Debt and Deficits Decomposed

A new dataset from Eurostat has received a lot of attention recently as it highlights the deficit costs of the bailout of our banking system that began with the blanket guarantee of September 2008.  On the other side of the same coin the data allows us to determine the non-banking crisis element of our recent deficits.

The following table shows the €105 billion of general government deficits that were accumulated between 2008 and 2011.  According to the Eurostat data €41 billion of these was due to measures introduced to deal with the banking collapse.  The final section of the table gives the ‘underlying’ deficit which is simply calculated as the difference between the total and banking-related figures in the sections above it.

Between 2008 and 2011 the ‘underlying’ deficits totalled €64 billion and this is a running total as the deficits continue to accumulate. 

At the end of 2007, the gross general government debt was just over €47 billion.  2007 was the last year when the general government accounts were close to balance and a small surplus of €143 million was recorded.

Since the end of 2007, the debt has ballooned and by the end of 2012 it is estimated to be around €190 billion.  The increase can be broken down as follows:

The figure for the 2012 general government deficit will be finalised later in the year and is likely to come around €13 billion.  With guarantee fees, interest on contingent capital notes, dividends on preference shares it is also likely that the revenues from the banking measures will exceed the expenditures. 

The surplus income paid to the Exchequer from the Central Bank has increased significantly in recent years (2008: €290 million; 2012: €958 million).  The increase is mainly as a result of profits made by the Central Bank on the Exceptional Liquidity Assistance it is provided to Anglo/INBS.  This is not included in the ‘banking’ revenues measured by Eurostat.

The stock/flow adjustment is mainly the increase in cash balances held by the NTMA from €4.4 billion at the end of 2007 to €24.0 billion at the end of 2012.

Just over one-fifth of the 2012 debt is due to the banks though the full cost of the bank bailout is larger when non-deficit increasing expenditures are included.  This includes the value of the some of the funds depleted from the National Pension Reserve Fund to buy ordinary and preference shares in AIB and BOI. It also includes the expenditure by the Exchequer on shares in PTSB and Irish Life and the contingent capital notes remaining in AIB and PTSB.  

Nearly two-thirds of the debt has been accumulated because of deficit spending by the government sector.

The 2007 debt accounts for 25% of the current total and that was the legacy of the last incident of national insolvency in the 1980s. The debt that resulted from the accumulated deficits of the time were simply rolled over and never repaid.  Growth and inflation meant the debt burden fell from 120% of GDP in the late 80s to 25% of GDP by 2007. 

The ongoing deficits since 2008 have contributed around 40% of the current debt mountain but the nature of them is changing as we move closer to a primary budget balance.

€14 billion in Bank Assets

Today’s sale of a €1 billion contingent convertible capital note (a form of subordinated bond) in Bank of Ireland brings the assets the State holds in the banks into focus.

There is another €1.6 billion of these bonds held from AIB and €0.4 billion from PTSB.  The NPRF holds the State’s preference and ordinary shares in AIB and BOI.  These are currently valued at €8.6 billion.  The Minister for Finance holds the State’s 99.75% holding in PTSB but no value is put on this.  The same goes for Irish Life which it is hoped can be sold for €1.3 billion.

All told, the State probably has about €14 billion of remaining assets in the ‘viable’ banks.

• €2 billion contingent convertible notes in AIB and PTSB
• €8.6 billion of preference and ordinary shares in AIB and BOI
• €1.3 billion through ownership of Irish Life
• 99.75% shareholding in PTSB

These valuations for AIB and PTSB are questionable as BOI is the only bank the State has been able to sell anything from.  Still it is better to be seeing the banks as vehicles for reducing our government debt levels rather than sinkholes to increase it, not that that problem has completely gone away.

Government Sector Financial Balance Sheet

The Central Bank have released their Quarterly Financial Accounts for Q1 2012 (release here; data here). This is the financial position of the government sector.

The currency assets of the government are the large cash reserves that have been maintained including more than €13 billion that was in the Exchequer Account.  The currency liabilities are mainly the state-savings schemes and deposits with An Post.

The assets under securities other than shares are mainly bonds held by the government sector.  The NTMA has some bonds in the discretionary portfolio of the NPRF and the state also holds €3 billion of subordinated bonds in the covered banks which forms part of their contingent capital.  The liabilities under this heading is almost entirely made up of the outstanding government bonds.

The €9 billion of loans held as assets will include loans forwarded by state agencies such as the Housing Finance Association.  The €80 billion of loan liabilities is primarily made up of €28.1 billion of promissory notes owed to the IBRC and €42.9 billion of loans drawn down as part of the EU/IMF programme.

The quoted shares will be the state’s shareholding in Bank of Ireland (15%), Allied Irish Bank (99.8%) and Irish Life & Permanent (99.4%) as well a 30% stake in Aer Lingus.  The unquoted shares represents the value of semi-state companies such as the ESB, Bord Gais, Coillte, Dublin Airport Authority and others.

The net financial position has €69.5 billion of financial assets partially offsetting €186.7 billion of financial liabilities giving an outcome of minus €117.2 billion.  The government sector’s net financial position improved from the start of the dataset in 2002 right through to the end of 2007 by which time the net position was negative €2.1 billion.  In the four years since the government sector’s financial position has deteriorated by €115 billion.

Nominal GDP and the Maastricht Criteria

Today’s National Accounts release from the CSO has generated a lot of reaction.  One peripheral issue is the impact of the figures on the government debt and deficit outcomes.  Back in April, Eurostat published the initial notification of these figures.  The reported 2011 figures for Ireland were:

• General government deficit: 13.1% of GDP
• General government debt 108.1% of GDP

On the same day the Department of Finance released an Information Note which stated that the ‘underlying deficit’ was equal to 9.4% of GDP.

These were based on a preliminary estimate of Ireland’s nominal GDP for 2011 of €156.4 billion.  Today’s figures from the CSO put the actual figure at €158.9 billion.  This has the following impact on the ratios:

• General government deficit: 12.9% of GDP
• ‘Underlying’ deficit: 9.2% of GDP
• General government debt: 106.5% of GDP

The General Government Debt

At the end of 2007, the gross general government debt was €47.2 billion.  The recent Eurostat debt and deficit release showed that this has increased to €169.3 billion at the end of 2011.  That is an increase of an incredible €122 billion in just four years.  We can use the previous post on the general government accounts to see how that has come about.

There we saw that from 2008 to 2011 Ireland ran underlying primary deficits summing to €48.5 billion.  Interest expenditure over the four years was €15.4 billion.  At the same time temporary or once-off measures totalled €41.4 billion, with bank-bailout payments making up the bulk of this.

These three items sum to €105.3 billion.  To get to the full €122 billion increase we must account for some stock/flow adjustments.  In the main this is an increase in borrowings to build up a cash buffer.  Details from the NTMA show that balances of €17.8 billion “were held
in Departmental Funds + other Accounts, including the Exchequer A/c.” at the end of 2011.  At the end of 2007 these cash balances were just €4.4 billion.

Here is a summary table of the changes in the debt since 2007.

The largest single item is the €48.5 billion of primary deficits run since 2008.  This is the excess of government expenditure on public sector pay, social welfare, services and investment over government revenue. 

The next largest item is the €47.2 billion of debt we carried into the crisis in 2007.  This debt is largely the residual of the last great crisis in the public finances from the 1980s.  Data from the NTMA show that in 1994 (commonly taken as the start of Celtic Tiger Mark 1) the general government debt was €41.7 billion.  It hardly changed over the next 13 years.

Temporary and once-off measures account for €41.4 billion of the increase in the general government debt.  The vast majority of this is the bank payments and of that the bulk is the €30.85 billion of Promissory Notes used to recapitalisation Anglo, INBS and to a lesser extent EBS in 2010.  Once-off measures (though they seem to be happening a lot) account for 34% of the increase in the debt over the past four years and 25% of the stock of debt at the end of 2011.

There is a big drop them to the final two items.  Over the four years interest expenditure was €15.4 billion.  In 2007, interest expenditure was €1.8 billion so if the 2007 debt and interest rates had been maintained interest would still have consumed €7.2 billion over the four years.  The extra debt added about €8.2 billion of additional interest costs over the four years and the bulk of that is due to the primary deficits rather than the once-off measures.  From the last post we saw that social transfers-in-cash totalled €96.7 billion over the four years.

The final item is the stock/flow adjustment that is mainly an increase in borrowing by the NTMA in 2008 and 2009 to build up cash balances.  The NTMA borrowed far more than was needed to fund the deficits and a cash buffer was built up that has been maintained as part of the EU/IMF programme.  The general government debt is a gross measure so no allowance is made for assets even though this cash could be used almost immediately to reduce the debt by that amount.

The composition of the general government debt was provided in this recent PQ to Michael Noonan.