Investment banking firms increasingly are buying notable stakes (4% or more) in publicly traded subprime firms.For instance, Deutsche Bank, until recently owned 7.2% in Accredited Home Lenders. It no longer ownsall that stock in Accredited, though. What happened? Good question. For the full details read the Monday editionof National Mortgage News. (Don't subscribe? Call: 800 221-1809.) Anyway, Deutsche isn't alone.Friedman, Billings, Ramsey owns 4.8% of Saxon Capital (as of this past fall.) Some of these investmentsare just that -- investments. But one nonprime executive suggested to us that the Street is buying these stakesas a way to curry favor with the lenders. Why? Perhaps the lender will need a warehouse or repo line, or maybesell their loans to the investment banker's trading desk. Interesting concept...
Meanwhile, National Mortgage News is putting the finishing touches on the 4Q edition of QuarterlyData Report. It appears subprime funders originated north of $720 billion in 2005, a record. If that numberholds subprime now accounts for about 26% of all loans funded. For more information on the QDR e-mail
Another earnings report and yet another disclosure about competition and pricing pressures. This time aroundit's NetBank. In its 2Q press release the mortgage lender disclosed that its conforming and nonconformingmortgage units reported pretax losses of $7 million and $10.8 million, respectively, noting, "The declinein profitability within both channels was due mainly to competitive margin pressure, not production volumes"...
A deal is reportedly very close for subprime lender Centex Home Equity of Dallas. Several bidders, includinginvestment funds and REITs have been kicking the firm's tires. Centex is owned by the homebuilder of the same name...
Washington Mutual, at least from a financial reporting standpoint, is combining Long Beach Mortgagein with its regular home loans unit...
So long Bimini, hello Opteum. Bimini Mortgage Management, a REIT that investments in MBS (and which recentlybought mortgage banker Opteum Financial), is changing its name to Opteum Inc...
New Jersey mortgage lender Hudson City Bancorp has agreed to purchase Sound Federal Bancorp for$265 million. Sound is based across the Hudson River in White Plains...
Clayton Holdings, an information and analytics company, has purchased Mortgage Resource Network,a provider of outsourced mortgage origination support and pre-closing due diligence services...
Remember John Weicher, who last year stepped down as federal housing commissioner? He's now directorof the center for housing and financial markets at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.In a recent article in the Financial Times he shot down the notion of a housing bubble in the U.S...
WASHINGTON NEWS: The Senate Finance Committee issued a statement saying its chairman, Sen.Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is reviewing whether government-chartered companies Fannie Mae and FreddieMac may have abused the special tax status of their charitable foundations by using them "and other charitablecontributions to skirt" campaign-finance and lobbying laws.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: PHH Mortgage has named Terri Merlino senior vice president of underwriting.Ms. Merlino joined PHH Mortgage in October 1992 as a senior analyst in secondary marketing. Fidelity NationalReal Estate Solutions has named John Hensley vice president of product management and software developmentfor its "broker mortgage solutions" group.
SURVEY NOTICE: Mortgage bankers and brokers -- NMN is gearing up for its annual production survey.If your firm wants to be ranked send an e-mail to
DATA NOTICE: For a limited period of time NMN is offering discounts if you purchase the MortgageIndustry Directory along with the Quarterly Data Report. For more details e-mail
