经济学人下载:美国债券保险公司(1)

On August 8th two subsidiaries of MBIA, an American insurer, sued nine Wall Street firms,
8月8日，美国债券保险公司的两家子公司起诉了9家华尔街公司，

alleging misconduct in underwriting bonds issued by Puerto Rico and "wrapped", or guaranteed, by MBIA.
宣称它们在承销由波多黎各发行，MBIA“包销”或担保的债券时存在违规行为。

Lawsuits accusing banks of peddling iffy securities are not rare these days.
如今，指控银行兜售问题债券诉讼并不鲜见。

However, this one is a reminder that "monoline" bond insurers,
但这一个诉讼提醒人们曾在2008年的金融危机中

which briefly played a starring role in the financial crisis of 2008, are, though hardly full of life, still kicking.
暂时扮演主角的“单线”债券保险公司虽然几乎没有活力，但仍在活跃。

Monoline insurers (so called because they focus solely on providing financial guarantees)
单线保险公司（这种称呼是因为它们仅专注于提供财务担保）

charge a premium to cover interest and principal payments should bonds default.
收取保费，以支付债券违约时的利息和本金。

The industry sprang up in the 1970s, first focusing on municipal debt and later branching out into structured products like mortgage securities.
这个行业在20世纪70年代兴起，起初它们专注于市政债券，然后拓展到结构性产品，比如抵押贷款证券。

That expansion backfired spectacularly when American house prices crashed.
当美国房价暴跌时，这种扩张产生了惊人的反效果。

For a few weeks in 2008 the previously obscure monolines—the biggest of which were MBIA and New York-based Ambac—
在2008年的几个星期里，这个之前鲜为人知的单线保险公司—其中最大的是MBIA和总部位于纽约的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.
成为了头版新闻，因为担心它们可能无力偿付数千亿美元证券化债务，

Rating agencies responded by downgrading monolines' own debt.
评级机构的回应是，对单线保险公司的债务降级。

That did for some of them, given that the business was largely about lending the insurer's AAA rating to the bonds.
鉴于这一行的业务主要是向这些债券提供其AAA评级的贷款，这一做法对其中一些公司造成了影响。

Ambac filed for bankruptcy and was placed in rehabilitation.
Ambac申请破产并被送去改造。

MBIA avoided going bust but is a shadow of its former self. Both firms remain in run-off,
MBIA躲开了破产，但仍是前身的影子。两家公司仍处于决胜阶段，

meaning they cannot write new policies, but have big books of existing business.
这意味着它们不能制定新的政策，但却拥有现有业务的大帐簿。

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岛的Assured Guaranty或总部位于纽约的Build America Mutual制订的。

The monolines had hoped that less-ravaged municipal bonds would shore them up.
单线保险公司曾希望受创程度较低的市政债券能够支撑它们。

But there too volume tumbled as issuance dwindled and interest rates fell, eroding margins.
但随着债券发行量的减少和利率的下降，这些债券的发行量也大幅下降，侵蚀了利润率。

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认为市政债券业务的规模仅为危机前的十分之一。