The crisis exacts Yesterday

financial crisis exploded one after the other bubbles in the beginning of the decade, largely due to the U.S. Federal Reserve which was established after 11 September 2001, access to credit history easy and cheap.

The excesses to which this period of easy money has given free rein caused the disaster that is known in the financial sector. But the credit bubble has resulted in another: that of mergers and acquisitions. Funding flowed like water in 2006 and 2007, including bank loans, bonds purchased by investors or capital also sold without difficulty on the market. Consequence: during the single year 2007, the acquisitions or alliances of companies have achieved in the world, the new level of 3 900 billion.

For some companies that are indiscriminate in this game of big maneuvers, landing today is brutal. Many of them are facing two types of errors they have committed. The first is to have paid too much the object of their lust. The second of badly put together their financing, at a time when the subject seemed secondary.

Tom McKillop, the former chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, acknowledged Monday that buying ABN Amro had been a "serious mistake", "overpaid" to boot. An understatement! RBS has spent more than 27 billion euros for its share of the Dutch bank (acquired with Fortis and Santander). In its balance sheet at 31 December 2008, the "ABN Amro, RBS has already planned to remove 15 to 20 billion in value. In summary, by adding the operational losses, RBS, or less, lost everything in this operation

The error is to believe that the phenomenon is unique to banks. The 2008 companies that publish at this time to pay the world, everywhere, to a heavy depreciation. Time Warner has recorded for 24.5 billion, Alcatel-Lucent for nearly 4 billion. For assets purchased yesterday based on growth assumptions, although reasonable, do the same thing today: their prospects for profitability are more or less severely curtailed by the recession.

For some businesses that were operating in 2006, 2007 and early 2008, the problem of the price is sometimes double difficulties of the financial data they have selected when this aspect of things going on in the background. The example of mining giant Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto is a textbook case. When he offered the Canadian Alcan (Pechiney owner), he put on the table 40 billion in cash, largely developed by the banks. But for 10 billion, the loan must be repaid in one year. Rio Tinto bet it could easily restructure the loan ... or sell assets to repay it.

The explosion of the bubble material, which was the fortune of ephemeral Rio Tinto, has happened. The financial crisis, who has eliminated the possibility of credit, access to the bond market, as well as potential buyers of assets. The giant is now strangled by debt, to the point of having to open the door of its capital and its mines in China Chinalco. Similarly, the family German Schaeffler pays too dearly for his boldness yesterday. He took control of the OEM Continental, twice as big as him. At the cost of debt that forces him to a painful negotiation with its bankers.

Examples of asphyxiation multiply. Between debtors and creditors, on Friday 13 February should also launch a major season of tense negotiations. Because borrowers generally have 45 days after the order of their annual accounts to serve their bankers that they comply with the conditions of their loans. A test of truth today feared by predators yesterday.