THIS JUST IN: Credit Suisse late last week moved to consolidate several of its mortgage-related business, resulting in an untold number of layoffs, most of which were in New York . A source close to the company said these four businesses will be combined and report to managing director Michael Marriott: asset-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, residential MBS and commercial MBS. For the full story see Monday's National Mortgage News. Don't subscribe? Call: (800) 221-1809...
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Well, it looks like the Bush White House and Treasury Department finally caved on the issue of GSE loan limits. Late last week House leaders and administration officials agreed to raise the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loan limit to $730,000 (from $417,000) to help increase liquidity in the secondary market and repair the tattered housing and mortgage industries. The only skunk at the garden party was GSE regulator James Lockhart who issued a statement saying, "We are very disappointed in the proposal to increase the conforming loan limit as we believe it is a mistake to do so in the absence of comprehensive GSE regulatory reform." Wow. It appears Mr. Lockhart really is an independent regulator...
Soon-to-be retired Countrywide Financial chief Angelo Mozilo was begging Treasury to hike the loan limit for months. It might have saved CFC some money. Too late for CFC though. Earnings come out next week. It will be interesting...
I'm looking for some insight on what happened to Olympus Mortgage of California , a lender managed by Claude Arnall, the brother of Roland. (Roland is the man behind Ameriquest, Argent, Long Beach Mortgage and a bunch of other firms.) Drop me an e-mail at Paul.Muolo@SourceMedia.com...
Meanwhile, Ameriquest (or whoever is managing its corporate remains) recently mailed restitution checks to 27,000 Florida consumers. The California-based lender signed a settlement in 2006 with 49 states and the District of Columbia to provide $295 million in consumer restitution for participating in practices the state alleged amounted to predatory lending activities...
It appears as though several large commercial banks -- Bank of America among them -- are being tapped by New York insurance regulators to lend financial assistance (up to $15 billion) to the nation's struggling bond insurers. Ambac, MBIA, FGIC and other counterparties play some type of role in the AAA insurance covering $230 billion in subprime and alt-A loans owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The GSEs, to date, have not revealed who their risk counterparties are. Meanwhile, the nation's mortgage insurers have outstanding loss polices totaling $1 trillion, according to the Quarterly Data Report. To order the QDR, send an e-mail to Deartra.Todd@SourceMedia.com...
Subprime lender First NLC Financial Services of Florida -- a Friedman Billings Ramsey-owned company -- finally got around to filing its bankruptcy papers. First NLC executives and board members signing the papers include brothers Neal and Jeffrey Henschel (who founded the company) and also FBR's Rock Tonkel. Mr. Tonkel serves as president and chief operating officer of the publicly traded FBR, an investment banking company whose shares sell for less than $4 a piece. Quite a few Ameriquest employees went to work for First NLC. If you have any insight about what went wrong at First NLC (or FBR) drop me an e-mail at Paul.Muolo@SourceMedia.com...
WASHINGTON NEWS: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is working on legislation that would create a new federal program to purchase "distressed" mortgages from lenders at a discount and provide a new 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to homeowners. Those mortgages could be insured by the Federal Housing Administration or purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The proposed Federal Homeownership Preservation Corp. is modeled after a Depression-era program that rescued one million homeowners from foreclosure. (See Brian Collins' story in NMN.)
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Wachovia Corp. named David Pope president of Wachovia Mortgage and retail credit. In his new role, Mr. Pope will be responsible for leading the daily sales, fulfillment, retention, service and operational aspects of the mortgage and retail credit businesses. Jack Kemp, a former housing secretary, has been named a spokesman for Generation Mortgage Co., an Atlanta reverse mortgage specialist. JPMorgan Chase has named former Great Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair as an advisor to the bank/investment banking firm.
A MUST-SEE CONGRESSIONAL HEARING: The House Oversight & Government Affairs Committee has invited Countrywide chairman and CEO Angelo Mozilo to testify on Feb. 7 on the topic of severance packages for subprime executives. Mr. Mozilo, according to one executive compensation company, stands to earn $112 million in severance benefits if he leaves CFC, which is slated for sale to Bank of America. Also invited: Stanley O'Neal and Charles Prince, the former chiefs, respectively, of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. Both were ousted after their firms reported large subprime related losses.
DATA NOTICE: The Mortgage Industry Directory and the online version of the book are still available. Besides listing detailed information on the top 400 lenders and 300 servicers in the U.S. , the MID ranks the nation's top funders of commercial mortgages. There's also information on loan brokers. The book has valuable contact information on the top executives and department heads at each firm. For more information e-mail Delores.Stokes@SourceMedia.com or Rebecca.Keen@SourceMedia.com.
