Irony: Stan Kurland's vulture fund Penny Mac is trying to make a tidy little profit by purchasing all those toxic mortgages that are dragging down our nation's financial institutions. Of course, $100 billion of those crummy loans were created by Mr. Kurland's old employer Countrywide Financial. Penny Mac, which went public this summer, just posted its first earnings report - a loss of less than $1 million. Its biggest problem? Answer: It appears that all those damn banks, Wall Street firms and thrifts aren't willing to sell their toxic subprime, alt-A loans, ABS and so on at a price where Mr. Kurland's firm can make a killing. Instead of buying assets at what Penny Mac believes are inflated prices, the firm is just saying no. But he isn't the only one who is displeased by the "bid/ask" out there. There are plenty of others. For the full story on why toxic loans sales haven't taken off - and likely won't - see the Monday paper edition of National Mortgage News. We're also publishing a selected list of lenders and their nonperforming assets most of which includes residential and commercial mortgages. Don't subscribe? Call 800-221-1809. If you have any thoughts about the state of the toxic asset market drop me an e-mail at
Meanwhile, Mr. Kurland, it appears, wants to get back into the lending business. You read that correctly. Penny Mac wants to start a conduit. Here's a piece of advice for the company: don't put a "Mac" or "Mae" in the firm's name. The full story is the on the NMN website:
Former Beneficial Finance manager Peter Cugno is still searching for startup capital to start a nonprime wholesale lender. It's tough going, he says...
The next paragraph is for HUD secretary Shaun Donovan and FHA commissioner David Stevens and concerns this past week's cancelled press conference. The rest of you can scroll down to the next item. Shaun, Dave: What the heck happened? Who's advising you these days on media relations? (If you need any help give me a call. Let's do lunch. And, by the way, where's my FOIA on Lend America?) But seriously, gents: You don't call a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington and then cancel it the night before WITHOUT giving a real explanation. Shaun, you're in the president's cabinet! OK, so the audit looks a little dodgy and you're trying to get the numbers right. I get it - but don't put out a press release/e-mail without some explanation. Better yet, don't say you're even going to have a press conference and release the audit when it's not a sure thing. You wouldn't believe what the rumor mill was saying about FHA. (Remember: FHA has almost 30% of the market these days. Without it ... you can fill in the blank.) It sounds like the fund is broke but sources tell me it's not. Let me correct that, sources say there's still some money left in it. That's the good news. The bad news is that the fund covers $700 billion in mortgages. Meanwhile, the rumor mill says FHA premiums could rise. For the full story see Monday's NMN...
For the rest of you: the FHA audit should be out within 10 days or so. Rumors are circulating that the Senate Banking Committee has hired its own auditor to look over FHA's book. It's strictly a rumor though...
Fannie Mae is talking to Wilshire Credit about that company - now owned by IBM - being a force-placed servicer for it...
According to the Quarterly Data Report, mortgage bankers are on track to fund $2.1 trillion this year. To order the QDR drop an e-mail to
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Former Bear Stearns executive Steven Begleiter is set to compete in the final table at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker starting on Saturday in Las Vegas. Until 2008, Begleiter was head of corporate strategy at Bear where executives - Jimmy Cayne and some of the mortgage traders - were known more for their bridge playing acumen. Bear, of course, no longer exists. Former Treasury secretary Henry Paulson has a new book coming out in January. It's about how he saved our financial markets. You can find it in the nonfiction section. (I think.) Lender's One chief Scott Stern recently competed in the Iron Man competition in Hawaii.
DATA NOTICE No. 1: Need soup-to-nuts statistics on the nation's top residential (and commercial) lenders and servicers? The new MortgageStats.com data product is ready. The user-friendly M-Stats is Web-based and incorporates both the Quarterly Data Report and our annual Mortgage Industry Directory. Among other things, it has annual rankings on the top 400 lenders and servicers, including breakdowns on retail, wholesale and correspondent - and news archives. There's contact info, too, and plenty of data on servicing. And here's the best part: you get quarterly updates. To see a sample send an e-mail to
DATA NOTICE No. 2: Even though we offer MortgageStats.com you can still subscribe to the Quarterly Data Report and Alternative Products QDR, spreadsheet products that provide readers with quarterly rankings on the nation's top lenders and servicers. There's also a companion product called the Midyear Data Report, which offers half-year rankings on lenders, servicers and more. There is an Alt-QDR version of this as well. Again, shoot an e-mail to
EDITORIAL NOTE: The Washington bureau of NMN has moved to Northern Virginia, which means there are new telephone numbers for our staff. Executive editor Paul Muolo can be reached at 571-403-3851, bureau chief Brian Collins at 571-403-3837, Andras Malatinszky, director of online products at 571-403-3862, and Deartra Todd, data collection and sales at 571-403-3859. The mailing address is 4401 Wilson Blvd./Suite 910, Arlington, VA 22203.
THE LAST WORD: Irony: Fannie Mae holds or guarantees almost $200 billion in nonperforming assets but it doesn't appear that it will unload any of it any time soon.
