Board-Ansicht
Mix-Ansicht- Lex Kolumne / Münchner Rück in Schwierigkeiten - EM-financial, 18.10.2003, 20:17
- Re: Solvabilität ist das Problem, nicht Solvenz & Liquidität - dottore, 19.10.2003, 14:52
Lex Kolumne / Münchner Rück in Schwierigkeiten
-->A lot can change in two months, but has so much really changed for Munich Re? In August, the German reinsurer insisted that its capital base was perfectly adequate, and that it had no need of a rescue rights issue. Today, it is asking shareholders to stump up a minimum of €3.8bn in a two-for-seven rights issue - not, you understand, because its balance sheet was in the slightest stretched, but to take advantage of the fine opportunities in the reinsurance market.
With an exercise price of at least €75 a share, the discount of 23 per cent to Thursday's closing price is milder than that forced on several other insurers obliged to pass around the begging bowl. That is probably appropriate, because Munich Re, though short of equity, was far from destitute.
But shareholders still need to see a stronger case than the two solitary paragraphs to which Munich Re has so far committed itself in writing. The full prospectus may prove no more enlightening, for it will be difficult to tell the naked truth. In reality, more equity is needed to bring Munich Re's capital base back up to the level necessary for its current volume of business.
But for form's sake, to make it look as though investors are not merely being asked to cover the cost of the company's past mistakes, it will be necessary to argue that the money will help finance growth.
That would have been a more convincing proposition a year ago, when the insurance market cycle was still moving firmly upward. It might even now be persuasive if there were any clear indication of what Nikolaus von Bomhard, who is to take over as chief executive from Hans-Jürgen Schinzler in January, plans to do differently.
Within the Munich shareholding triangle, Allianz is committed to taking up at least half of its rights, but HVB, whose own balance sheet is no thing of beauty, has promised to subscribe in full. This prompts the dreadful thought that this is merely a loan, to be repaid when the bank in due course launches its own rights issue. That would be the worst possible start to Mr von Bomhard's tenure.
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