If you have some spare time during the holiday season
- Freddie's board of directors -- George
Gould Henry Kaufman Ronald Poe smoothing out of earnings. They either knew all about it or claimed that they weren't given enough time at board meetings to be inquisitive. - One director (unnamed) seemed to care less what the SEC would think
about the smoothing of earnings and was more interested in "how transparent smoothing of growth would be to others." - When it came to the board, former chairman/CEO Leland
Brendsel Glenn director were to call a Freddie Mac employee, it was the employee's duty to report the phone call to "David and Leland." - Messrs. Brendsel and Glenn were not businessmen, per se, but "financial
economists." - According to Glenn, in the fall of 2000, Freddie's management consciously
decided to change its risk profile and take more "convexity risk -- that is speculate on interest rates."
The report, which is damning (to say the least), is 172 pages long.Happy Holidays...Of course, there's another way to view the scandal. More than oneveteran mortgage executive has expressed exasperation at the allegations, suggesting that many a publicly tradedfirm does what Freddie was doing. As one senior executive put it: "I still don't get what they did wrong.Were any laws broken?"...
Countrywidechief Angelo Mozilorecently told National Mortgage News that the current "run rate" for loan production is $1.2 trillion.Yes, that's right, $1.2 trillion. (According to NMN's calculations, 2003 production will come in at $3.6 trillion.) Mr. Mozilopredicted that next year originations will total $1.5 trillion, a number that is 25% lower than his forecast forthe fall. On Friday, Fannie Mae economistDavid Berson predictedproduction of $1.75 trillion next year...
One firm that is expecting a barn burner year in 2004 is Lime Financial of Oregon.The relatively new company -- managed by Mike and Fred Baldwin -- is forecasting production of $750 billion next year compared to $140 billionin 2003. Lime is a non-prime wholesale lender. See upcoming stories on the company in NMN and Origination News...
CU West Mortgage,a new mortgage company owned by the California CU League and Orange County TeachersFCU, received final regulatory approval to begin taking loanapplications and signed its first customer, Allied CU. According to CreditUnion Journal, the final approval came when the stateof California granted the company a mortgage lending license and Fannie Mae approved it as a lender/customer. Thecompany will be a full-service mortgage lender for credit unions in California and Nevada..
Don't call me Glenn: GlennComputer Corp., a mortgage servicing technology company, haschanged its name to GCC Servicing Systems.Its president is Glenn Liebowitz.We assume he originally named the company after himself....
American Mortgage Network,a wholesale lender, funded $552 million in home mortgages in November, compared to $695 million in October...
Korn/Ferry International,the search firm that found Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron, earned six cents a share in the second quarter excluding restructuring charges,compared with a loss of five cents a share a year ago...
MORTGAGE STOCKS THROUGH THE ROOF:Remember Accredited Home Lenders,a moderate-sized subprime shop that went public earlier this year? Its stock recently hit a 52-week high of $33compared to a low of just $7. Last week it was trading down (along with many other mortgage-related stocks) inthe wake of (future) bad earnings news from Washington Mutual. One mortgage-related stock that continues to defy gravity is Hudson City Bancorp ofNew Jersey. The New Jersey-based lender hit a 52-week high two weeks ago and has a price-to-earnings ratio in nosebleedterritory at 33x earnings. Maybe traders know something that the rest of us don't.
WASHINGTON NEWS:Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raineshas a major speech planned for next Wednesday at George Washington University. Stay tuned. Sen.Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., told an awards ceremony inNew York City that she will introduce legislation that would increase the loan limits of the FederalHousing Authority and enable more New York households to qualifyfor FHA loans. Speaking at the 30th Annual New York and National Housing Conference Award Luncheon, Sen. Clintonsaid the "FHA Single Family Loan Limit Adjustment Act of 2003" would increase the FHA loan limit to 100%of the area median home price, which in New York is up to $310,000, and eliminate the Fannie- and Freddie-imposed87% ceiling on such loans.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE:
MORTGAGE DATA:Need
