IMF's moment in the spotlight

By Alex Brummer for the Daily Mail
Updated: 03:46 EDT, 24 May 2011

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, his arrest has brought about a great change.

It has made the International Monetary Fund sexy.

As someone who has reported on the IMF since 1976, when Denis Healey made his application for a British loan, I can personally testify that for most of the period since then no one in Britain cared a jot about who is running the Fund.

Most people would be hard put to name any IMF managing director other than DSK and certainly his two immediate predecessors deservedly sank without trace.

What the IMF says about nations is of profound interest to those countries affected, but the recherché world of quotas, voting constituencies, conditionality, surveillance and categories of loans generally produces a large yawn.

Suddenly, however, every political columnist (most of whom have never entered the hallowed portals in Washington) has a view about who should, or should not succeed DSK and the great importance of the job.

The battle lines have been drawn on three separate fronts. Here in Britain the campaign to block Gordon Brown has been in full swing with the Tories leading the charge. The very idea of Brown inspecting the books of the nation he ruined is anathema.

It has taken outsiders, such as World Bank president James Wolfensohn KBE, to come rallying to his defence.

The Brussels camp is determined to wedge a European into the job. It is somewhat surprising to find a UK government (the Tories are meant to be Eurosceptic after all) seeking to inject the French finance minister Christine Lagarde into the post.

Her main qualifications seem to be that she speaks good English. The fact that she has an ethical cloud regarding an alleged sweetheart loan deal over her head is ignored.

The third and final group seeking to exert power are the emerging markets. Those in the frame include a Singaporean with an unpronounceable name, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, South African Trevor Manuel and Mexican central banker Augustin Carstens.

There is something a little extraordinary about the euroland effort to retain ownership of the job. It smacks of a form of insider trading given that the biggest takers of IMF cash at present are on the euro's fringe.

That is precisely why Lagarde, irrespective of anything else, should be excluded.

As for the emerging market candidates, Singapore's claims are slightly tainted by its lack of understanding of democracy and Mexico by its fiscal profligacy down the years.

Among the best qualified candidates would be Stanley Fischer, currently governor of the Bank of Israel. As a Zimbabwean-born former deputy managing director and distinguished economist he has it all. But one suspects that the Fund's Middle East constituents might be less than enthusiastic.

The horse-trading goes on. But there is one certain outcome. Once the choice is made no one, other than the IMF's borrowers, will be paying any attention.

Banking risks

The main reason why the euroland nations are so desperate to retain their stranglehold on the IMF is to protect their own banking systems.

The latest wobble in the euro area, largely caused by the weekend upheaval in Spain, was enough to send shockwaves through currency, bond and equity markets.

A note from Bank of America Merrill Lynch looks at the potential impact of restructuring debt on Europe's banks.

If the haircut on Greek debt alone was 50%, then the bank losses would be an estimated $63bn - a shock but not a desperate one.

But if Ireland and Portugal were to roll in behind Greece with haircuts of 30% then the cost to the European banking system soars to $253bn with banks in Belgium, Germany and Denmark suffering most.

Finally, if the Greek haircut were 70%, Ireland and Portugal took 50% and Spain 20% the estimated bill would be $543bn.

The reverberations of this, throughout the global economy, might be every bit as great as the sub-prime virus. Yikes.

Bed blockers

It would be easy to dismiss Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's attack on fellow knight and boardroom stalwart Sir David Michels as the bitter ravings of a frustrated founder and owner. But he does have a point.

There is a tendency, not just at easyJet, for former directors of companies to hang on in their posts well past their announced retirement date continuing to collect some nice fees.

At the high street banks both John Varley at Barclays and Eric Daniels at Lloyds fall into this category having negotiated consultancy contracts which see them safely through to retirement.

This is a bit of misguided governance that needs correcting.