华尔街：旧痛未消 新愁又起

After suffering a beating from their exposure to home loans, banks and securities firms are about to take their lumps from office towers, hotels and other commercial real estate. And the losses could last longer than those from the subprime shakeout.

As the economy wobbles and financing costs rise because of the credit crunch, commercial-real-estate values are starting to slide, with analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. projecting a decline of 21% to 26% in the next two years. That means misery for securities firms with exposure to commercial-real-estate loans and commercial- mortgage-backed securities.

William Tanona, a Goldman analyst, expects total write-downs of $7.2 billion by Bear Stearns Cos., Citigroup Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and Morgan Stanley in the first quarter. Those firms had combined commercial-real-estate exposure of $141 billion at the end of the fourth quarter.

A team of Goldman analysts predicts the financial damage from commercial real estate could last as long as two years, which would mean 'a significantly longer tail than subprime.' That is because only 28% of commercial-real-estate loans have been packaged into securities since 1995, while about 80% of subprime loans have been securitized; the higher level of securitization subjects the subprime assets to more-immediate mark-to-market accounting, which is playing out in the form of the write-downs that are dominating headlines.

Wall Street has set itself up for a hard fall in commercial real estate. Banks and securities firms are facing exposure from loans and financing commitments made on commercial-real-estate projects, property they own directly and commercial-mortgage-backed securities that no one wants to buy.

How much worse the write-downs get likely depends on the economy. 'If we go into a deep recession, as implied by the various indices looking at the fixed-income market, the write-downs could be bigger in coming quarters,' says Richard Bove, an analyst at Punk Ziegel & Co.

If there is a silver lining, it is that the excesses that overtook the U.S. housing market aren't as prevalent in commercial real estate. Overbuilding of shopping malls, office parks and other commercial property hasn't been rampant, although vacancy rates are climbing in such markets as Orange County, Calif., and Las Vegas, which have been hit by the weak housing market.

Market values of commercial-mortgage-backed securities, which are pools of mortgages that are sliced up and sold to investors as bonds, are down about 5% since late last year, compared with declines of roughly 50% or more last year for some collateralized debt obligations. CDOs are debt pools of repackaged residential-mortgage bonds, and they have been brutally hit by losses on mortgage investments.

Overall, commercial-real-estate write-downs in the first quarter are expected to rival those for CDOs and leveraged loans. Mr. Tanona predicted write-downs of commercial-mortgage-backed securities should 'intensify' in the first quarter to $7.2 billion from $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter. By comparison, he foresees first-quarter write-downs of $10 billion in CDOs and $5.8 billion in leveraged-loan commitments.

Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.So far, default rates on commercial-mortgage-backed securities are a slim 0.4%. But that is likely to rise as loose lending standards on some commercial-real-estate loans come back to haunt lenders and investors. More than $50 billion of five-year, full-term interest-only loans written at aggressive loan-to-value ratios could turn into defaults 'at a significant level' if the loans can't be refinanced this year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, a real-estate brokerage and money-management firm in Chicago.

The sluggish economy will add more stress, because demand for office and retail space is likely to suffer. On the other hand, the commercial-property market hasn't seen the kind of excessive supply that caused property values to tumble in the last recession, which could help maintain real-estate prices.

It isn't easy to size up the potential damage. Financial firms' public reports 'don't paint a full picture,' says Peter Nerby, a credit analyst at Moody's Investors Service. For example, Morgan Stanley reports commercial-mortgage exposure before and after the effect of offsetting transactions, or hedges, while Bear, Goldman and Lehman don't.

When times were good, underwriting commercial mortgage-backed securities was a bonanza for Wall Street. Global volume of those deals more than tripled to $294.8 billion last year from $85.8 billion in 2003, according to data tracker Dealogic. The surge helped fuel rising values on commercial property.

But demand for commercial-mortgage-backed securities has plunged because investors want higher returns to compensate for growing risk. As a result, deal flow has slowed, drying up a profit stream for investment banks. January was the first month in more than a decade in which not one issue was sold.

An even bigger problem is the firms' own holdings of leftover, unsold commercial-mortgage-backed securities. Because the market for these bonds has virtually shut down and made it hard to determine what they are worth, Wall Street firms are being forced to rely on the CMBX index, which tracks the performance of commercial-real-estate bonds with different credit ratings.

Portions of the index have more than tripled this year, indicating soaring perceptions of risk. The index's movement implies a 5% loss rate, pressuring banks to mark down the value of their bonds even though the underlying properties are still generating cash.

Morgan Stanley, last year's No. 1 underwriter of commercial-mortgage-backed securities, cut its exposure to such mortgages by 52% to $17.5 billion after hedges in the fourth quarter, compared with three months earlier. That might have pointed investors to the spot where Morgan Stanley expects the 'next shoe will drop,' Guy Moszkowski, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said in a report.

Another trouble spot is the debt financing provided last year to facilitate leveraged buyouts of real-estate concerns. One of the biggest examples: A group led by Bear still is trying to sell the debt offered to Blackstone Group LP for its $20 billion takeover of Hilton Hotels Corp. In December, Moody's cut its ratings on Bear, partly blaming the firm's 'concentrated risk' from the Hilton deal.

'You couldn't have been a player in this market without having legacy deals [that you're stuck with], because the market collapsed so quickly,' said an executive at a large bank.

在饱尝住房贷款领域带来的打击后，银行和证券公司又将在包括写字楼、酒店等项目的商业地产领域吞下“恶果”，而且这次的痛苦也许比次贷危机带来的负面影响持续更长时间。

由于经济形势不稳以及信贷危机引发融资成本上升，商业地产的价值正开始缩水，高盛(Goldman Sachs Group)分析师预计未来两年内其价值跌幅将达到21%至26%。对那些持有商业地产贷款和商业按揭证券头寸的证券公司来说，这意味着苦日子到了。

高盛分析师威廉•塔诺那(William Tanona)预计贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns Cos.)、花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)、摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase & Co.)、雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers Holdings)、美林(Merrill Lynch & Co.)以及摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)今年第一季度将总共冲销约72亿美元。截至去年四季度，这些公司在商业地产领域的风险敞口共计1,410亿美元。

高盛的一组分析师预测，商业地产对经济造成的冲击将持续两年之久，这意味着其后续问题持续的时间将大大超过次贷的问题。之所以如此的原因在于，自1995年以来商业地产贷款中只有28%被打包成证券，相比之下约有80%的次级贷款被证券化；较高的证券化水平使次级资产在会计统计方面采用了更直接的市价法，致使金融机构不得不计入大笔冲销。

华尔街在商业地产领域恐怕注定难逃“苦果”。银行和证券公司一方面发放贷款，一方面为商业地产项目、自有资产以及难以找到买家的商业按揭证券作出各项融资承诺，这使得他们面临着一系列风险。

广告这些冲销究竟糟糕到何种程度，这或许有赖于未来的经济走势。Punk Ziegel & Co.分析师理查德•博维(Richard Bove)表示，如果经济陷入严重衰退，就如同反映固定收入市场的各类数据所显示的那样，未来几个季度冲销的规模将进一步扩大。

而如果商业地产的供应过量问题不像美国住房市场那样严重，那情况或许要乐观一些。虽然加州橘郡、拉斯维加斯等市场的商用住宅空置率近来处于升势，但购物中心、写字楼停车场等商用地产项目过滥的状况还不算太糟。

自去年年末以来，商业按揭证券的市值已下滑约5%，而有些债权抵押证券(CDO)去年的跳水幅度大约在50%左右，甚至更多。商业按揭证券由多种证券组合而成，它们被分割后作为债券出售给投资者；CDO是二次打包的住房按揭债券组合，按揭投资的损失使CDO的持有者遭受了沉重打击。

总体来说，商业地产第一季度的冲销规模可能与CDO和杠杆贷款的冲销额大致相当。塔诺那预计，商业按揭证券今年一季度的冲销金额将由去年第四季度的18亿美元升至72亿美元。此外，他还预测一季度CDO和杠杆贷款承诺的冲销额分别为100亿美元和58亿美元。

到目前为止，商业抵押证券的违约率只有0.4%。但随着一些商业房地产贷款标准的放宽，放贷机构和投资者重又产生了担忧情绪，因此这个数字很可能会上升。总部位于芝加哥的房地产经纪及理财公司仲量联行(Jones Lang Lasalle)的数据显示，如果今年无法获得再融资的话，将有500多亿美元的5年期、全期净息还款、较高成数的贷款可能出现“很大程度”的违约。

经济疲软带来的办公和零售业用地需求减少将使商业房地产市场雪上加霜。另一方面，上次经济衰退时出现了供应过量导致的房价下挫，而目前商业房地产市场还没有出现供过于求的状况，所以可能有利于保持房价。

对潜在的损失进行评估并不容易。穆迪公司(Moody's Corporation)投资者服务部的信贷分析师彼得•纳比(Peter Nerby)说，各大金融机构公布的报告没有把整体情况描述出来。举例来讲，摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)公布了套期保值之前和之后的商业抵押贷款风险敞口，而贝尔斯登、高盛和雷曼兄弟则没有。

在光景好的时候，承销商业抵押贷款支持证券对华尔街投行来说可谓好买卖。数据追踪公司Dealogic的数据显示，全球在这方面的交易量从2003年的858亿美元达到去年的2,948亿美元，增长了两倍多。交易量的大幅增长助长了商业房地产价值的上涨。

不过，由于投资者希望获得更高的回报来抵消风险的增大，商业抵押贷款支持证券的需求大幅下滑。结果造成交易量减少，各大投行的利润逐渐枯竭。今年1月份市场未能发售任何一种商业抵押证券，这是十多年来的第一次。

更大的问题是投行手中未卖出的此类证券。因为相关市场实际上已经关停，很难决定这些证券的价值，所以华尔街投行都只能依赖商业抵押证券指数(CMBX)。该指数追踪不同信用等级的商业房地产债券的业绩。

今年该指数的有些板块上涨了两倍多，显示出投资者对风险的预期大大增加。该指数的走势显示损失率达5%，银行因此被迫减记债券价值，尽管房地产本身仍在带来现金收入。

摩根士丹利四季度采取了套期保值措施后，相关证券风险较3个月前降低了175亿美元，减少了52%。美林分析师盖伊•莫斯考斯基(Guy Moszkowski)在一份报告中指出，这或许向投资者表明了摩根士丹利预计到“另一只靴子”会在什么地方落下来。去年，摩根士丹利的商业抵押证券承销额位居世界各大投行首位。

另外一个问题是去年进行的旨在为房地产杠杆收购提供便利的债务融资。最有力的例子之一是：由贝尔斯登牵头的一个组织现在仍在试图卖掉借给百仕通集团(Blackstone Group)用于收购希尔顿酒店集团(Hilton Hotels Corp.)的贷款。这次并购的资金规模达200亿美元。去年12月，穆迪下调了贝尔斯登的评级，部分原因就是该公司因希尔顿收购交易导致的“集中风险”。

某大型银行的一位高管说，如果没有过去积累下来的交易，你就无法在这个市场上立足，因为市场下挫的速度太快了。