Goldman Sachs (GS) reiterated its claim this morning that it wouldn't have lost anything had AIG (AIG) been allowed to fail. Indeed, the bank says, it was fully hedged.
Actually, it was far more than that. It was not just fully hedged -- Goldman Sachs had positioned itself to profit big-time from the fall of AIG.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/03/preliminary-goldman-call-observations.html">Zero Hedge runs the numbers:
In a nutshell - Goldman had bought billions in AIG CDS in the 2004 to 2006 timeframe. Whether this was predicated by their expectation that subprime would blow up, or their very early understanding just how bad things at AIG were, one will never know, especially not the SEC. However, one look at the CDS chart below shows what prevailing levels for AIG's CDS was in that time frame. As one can see, AIG 5 yr CDS traded in a range of 4 bps to 52.50 bps between October 1, 2004 (only goes back so far) and December 31, 2006. Indicatively 5 yr CDS closed yesterday at a comparable running spread equivalent of 1,942 bps.
Purchasing $10 billion in CDS (roughly in line with what Viniar claims happened) at a hypothetical average price of 25 bps (and realistically much less than that) and rolling that would imply that at today's AIG 5 yr CDS price of 1,942 bps, the company made roughly $4.7 billion in profit from shorting AIG alone!This would more than make up for the $2.5 billion collateral shortfall (out of $4.4 billion total) GS claims AIG had with Goldman Sachs... If AIG had filed for bankruptcy, and assuming Lehman is any indication, the P&L would have likely hit $6+ billion.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
