BRUSSELS (MNI) – A draft blueprint for Eurozone aid to Spain’s
banking sector that will inflict losses on retail bank customers who
became shareholders is unlikely to change significantly, the European
Commission confirmed on Wednesday.

“We do not expect it to be subject to further significant debate or
amendments,” a spokesman for the Commission said.

The draft Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) that Spain will have to
sign in return for up to E100 billion in Eurozone aid emphasizes that
holders of hybrid capital and subordinated debt instruments must bear
some of the cost of the sector’s clean up.

“We are working on the principle that private sector participation
in the distribution of losses is necessary to ensure that taxpayers do
not have to shoulder an unfair burden,” the Commission spokesman said.

The requirement “reduces the debt burden on the state and so is
consistent with our strategy of working to break the link between banks
and sovereign risk,” he said.

In reality, however, the requirement will hit Spanish taxpayers
hard, via a different route, since retail investors are the biggest
owners of such capital instruments, which Bank of Spain data show total
E67 billion.

Retail investors have already suffered heavily from losses on their
investment in the E3 billion IPO of Bankia, which is now subject to a
criminal investigation by Spanish authorities

Senior bond holders and depositors will not be affected, the
European Commission said.

Spanish banks deemed non-viable could be ordered to close as soon
as October, while viable banks needing to raise equity capital
equivalent to more than 2% of their risk-weighted assets will have to
issue contingent convertible bonds (COCOs) by the end of the year, the
document says.

As a precautionary measure, the COCOs will first be subscribed by
Spain’s bank restructuring agency, FROB, using Eurozone cash. They will
be redeemable until June 30 2013 if the issuing bank succeeds in raising
private capital, otherwise the bank would be recapitalized through a
partial or total conversion of the COCOs to ordinary shares.

By the end of August, Spain’s bank resolution authority, FROB, will
gain powers to override shareholders, order the sale of businesses, and
transfer assets to a new government bad bank, the document says.

The fate of a first group of banks, comprising those already under
the control of FROB – BFA/Bankia, Catalunya Caixa, NCG Banco and Banco
de Valencia – will be largely worked out by mid-August but finalized in
November this year, following the completion of a new stress test
expected in the second half of September.

–Brussels newsroom: +324-9522-8374; pkoh@marketnews.com

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