Blog post

Chart of the week: Funding costs are coming down

Publishing date
29 October 2012

At the end of July when sovereign yields of the troubled euro area economies were reaching a peak, we highlighted in a chart of the week the Emergency on funding costs for sovereigns, financial and non-financial corporations. The piece emphasized that:

·         Funding cost for financial and non-financial corporations are highly correlated with sovereign risk and have reached very high levels leading to a real fragmentation of the euro area

·         Top financial corporations were borrowing at higher rates than sovereigns and non-financial corporates

·         In Spain the market pressure over the sovereign risk was so high that the top 5 Spanish non-financial corporations were borrowing at lower interest rates than their sovereign, hinting at some decoupling of sovereign from private sector risk

Since Draghi’s announcements about doing “whatever it takes to preserve the euro” (see: The bond market consequences of Mr Draghi), risk measures have come down substantially. Non-financial corporate in Spain and Italy now pay a risk premium of around 300 basis points for 5 year CDSs. This compares to a risk premium of 100 basis points for German corporates.

Interestingly, the normal ordering has been re-established with the sovereign risk being the lower bench mark. In particular, Spanish corporates now pay higher risk premiums than their respective governments. Similarly, in France the non-financial corporates now pay higher premiums than the government.

These results suggest that a normalization of financing costs has been established in the euro area thanks to the ECB’s pledge. It is clear, however, that funding costs remain high for peripheral corporate bonds.

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As in the previous blog entry, we plot the CDS risk premia on 5 year sovereign bonds along the CDS premia for the financial and non-financial corporate bonds of the five largest corporations in Spain, Italy, Germany and France[1]. We build an unweighted average across the largest five financial and the five non-financial corporations. The corporations included are listed in the table below.

 

Italy

Spain

France

Germany

Financial

Unicredit

Banco Santander

BNP Paribas

Deutsche Bank

Corporations

Unione di Banche Italiane

BBVA

Credit Agricole

Commerzbank

 

Banco Popolare

Banco Popular Espanol

Dexia Credit Local de France

HypoVereinsbank

 

Intensa Sanpaolo

CaixaBank

Societe Generale

Bayerische Landesbank

 

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena

 Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid

Natixis

Norddeutsche Landesbank

Non-Financial

Atlantia

Telefonica

Total

Siemes

Corporations

ENI

Iberdrol

Sanofi-Aventis

SAP

 

ENEL

Repsol

LVMH

Basf

 

Telecom Italia

Gas Natural

L'Oreal

Volkswagen

 

Fiat

Abertis

GDF Suez

Daimler


[1] For financial corporations, the sample includes the top five financial institutions ranked according to its value of total assets at the end of 2012. Non-financial corporations have been selected according to the Financial Times' Global 500 list, where ranking is based on prices and market values from 30 March 2012.  If data from one of the top-five ranked institutions was not available (financial and non-financial), the next highest ranked institution with data was considered. 

About the authors

  • Guntram B. Wolff

    Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

    An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and  advisory board of Elcano.

    Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media. 

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