hat the proposed transaction would be better for shareholders than for bond holders shows clearly in the price action this morning. While the bond lost further from around 33% to around 27% (or -20% in relative terms), the shares are up more than +20% at the time of writing.
Coming back to my headline: When i bought my first two small Russian share positions (Sberbank, Sistema) many people commented that they would never buy Russian shares because property rights are not respected in Russia. This might be even correct, but you get very cheap valuations and if they do respect property rights, tzhe potential upside is high.
In German bond markets however, property rights are even worse in my opinion once a company is in trouble. As we learned at IVG, subordinated bond holders can be wiped out without blinking an eye and looking at the last few cases, senior bond holders are now expected to rescue the company before shareholders commit a single cent. Under German insolvency proceedings, often the old management carries on (WGF) and wipes out bondholders as they wish. However, other than in Russia, there is no upside to this if you buy a newly issued German bond at par. So for me, if I would need to choose between a newly issued German Corporate bond and a Russian stock, the choice is clear….
The sad part of this story is that this event along with many other similar event will hurt corporate bond issuance in Germany in the long run, especially for smaller companies. With the banks continuing to shrink, this is not good news for those German Mittelstand companies who need debt funding.
I am somehow tempted to become a “bond activist” here….Let’s see how this continues….
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