Originally Posted by
Snoopy
Thanks for putting things in proportion Baa baa. $250m is not a lot for Harmony in the big picture. Incidentally, I went over to the P to P forum and saw that Harmony P to P for most of us is closing down. You can still borrow as a 'P' but to get on the lending side you now require a minimum of $10m. There aren't too many, even on this forum, able or willing to splash out that much on lending via Harmony. Harmony losses may not be so bad because, as a part owner of Harmony, Heartland 'clips the ticket' on each loan they write by part owning the Harmony platform. That income stream is independent of what happens to the loan down the track.
'Business Finance' must be a worry. The problem here is that many of these loans would have been taken out in a business environment that could not have conceived of a business lock down such as we are in now. Having no revenue does not mean you are an incompetent business person today. For example, what would be the point in bankrupting a mall store owner, then on selling the bankrupt's assets to a new store owner who may be less competent? And who would take on a lease in a mall that is closed, and liable to be closed again at short notice anyway? The only solution I can see to this is a multi-party solution. Banks, premesis owners, and business operators will have to work together and take a 'joint hit'. If they don't then all three will lose, and lose big time. OK banks might get their money back, but then they will have no-one to lend to. I think we are going to have to move out of the lock down phase before anything can happen. 'And Grant Robertson has provided the liquidity to allow everyone to wait. And if there is no light after six weeks, Robertson will provide more liquidity. 'Liquidating at the bottom' would be three way commercial suicide for business owners and landlords and banks alike.
Motor vehicle loans is likely to be more of a slow moving problem. There will be no appetite to repossess a whole lot of vehicles en masse. In this environment there would be no-one to sell them to. Better to let things slow burn, and even put aside some car payments, deferring them to the end of the lease when a lump sum of capital becomes available. It is very hard to form a meaningful view of what happens to a motor loan that expires in 2-3 years. Kicking the loan down the road looks like the only short term solution.
Suddenly 'rural finance' looks relatively safe. Who would have picked that two or three years ago! Maybe time to return the HGH AGM to Ashburton?
SNOOPY