評(píng)論
打印
On August 8th two subsidiaries of MBIA, an American insurer, sued nine Wall Street firms,
8月8日，美國債券保險(xiǎn)公司的兩家子公司起訴了9家華爾街公司，
alleging misconduct in underwriting bonds issued by Puerto Rico and "wrapped", or guaranteed, by MBIA.
宣稱它們?cè)诔袖N由波多黎各發(fā)行，MBIA“包銷”或擔(dān)保的債券時(shí)存在違規(guī)行為。
Lawsuits accusing banks of peddling iffy securities are not rare these days.
如今，指控銀行兜售問題債券訴訟并不鮮見。
However, this one is a reminder that "monoline" bond insurers,
但這一個(gè)訴訟提醒人們?cè)?008年的金融危機(jī)中
which briefly played a starring role in the financial crisis of 2008, are, though hardly full of life, still kicking.
暫時(shí)扮演主角的“單線”債券保險(xiǎn)公司雖然幾乎沒有活力，但仍在活躍。
Monoline insurers (so called because they focus solely on providing financial guarantees)
單線保險(xiǎn)公司（這種稱呼是因?yàn)樗鼈儍H專注于提供財(cái)務(wù)擔(dān)保）
charge a premium to cover interest and principal payments should bonds default.
收取保費(fèi)，以支付債券違約時(shí)的利息和本金。
The industry sprang up in the 1970s, first focusing on municipal debt and later branching out into structured products like mortgage securities.
這個(gè)行業(yè)在20世紀(jì)70年代興起，起初它們專注于市政債券，然后拓展到結(jié)構(gòu)性產(chǎn)品，比如抵押貸款證券。
That expansion backfired spectacularly when American house prices crashed.
當(dāng)美國房價(jià)暴跌時(shí)，這種擴(kuò)張產(chǎn)生了驚人的反效果。
For a few weeks in 2008 the previously obscure monolines—the biggest of which were MBIA and New York-based Ambac—
在2008年的幾個(gè)星期里，這個(gè)之前鮮為人知的單線保險(xiǎn)公司—其中最大的是MBIA和總部位于紐約的Ambac—
became front-page news as fears spread that they might be unable to pay claims on hundreds of billions of dollars of securitised debt.
成為了頭版新聞，因?yàn)閾?dān)心它們可能無力償付數(shù)千億美元證券化債務(wù)，
Rating agencies responded by downgrading monolines' own debt.
評(píng)級(jí)機(jī)構(gòu)的回應(yīng)是，對(duì)單線保險(xiǎn)公司的債務(wù)降級(jí)。
That did for some of them, given that the business was largely about lending the insurer's AAA rating to the bonds.
鑒于這一行的業(yè)務(wù)主要是向這些債券提供其AAA評(píng)級(jí)的貸款，這一做法對(duì)其中一些公司造成了影響。
Ambac filed for bankruptcy and was placed in rehabilitation.
Ambac申請(qǐng)破產(chǎn)并被送去改造。
MBIA avoided going bust but is a shadow of its former self. Both firms remain in run-off,
MBIA躲開了破產(chǎn)，但仍是前身的影子。兩家公司仍處于決勝階段，
meaning they cannot write new policies, but have big books of existing business.
這意味著它們不能制定新的政策，但卻擁有現(xiàn)有業(yè)務(wù)的大帳簿。
These days, most new policies are written by either Bermuda's Assured Guaranty or New York-based Build America Mutual.
如今，大部分政策是由百慕大群島的Assured Guaranty或總部位于紐約的Build America Mutual制訂的。
The monolines had hoped that less-ravaged municipal bonds would shore them up.
單線保險(xiǎn)公司曾希望受創(chuàng)程度較低的市政債券能夠支撐它們。
But there too volume tumbled as issuance dwindled and interest rates fell, eroding margins.
但隨著債券發(fā)行量的減少和利率的下降，這些債券的發(fā)行量也大幅下降，侵蝕了利潤率。
Josh Esterov of CreditSights, a research firm, reckons the muni-insurance business is a tenth of its pre-crisis size.
研究公司CreditSights的Josh Esterov認(rèn)為市政債券業(yè)務(wù)的規(guī)模僅為危機(jī)前的十分之一。
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