What We're Hearing

Today, the government oversight panel that keeps an eye on TARP money said it's still unclear whether Uncle Sam will fully recoup the $182 billion taxpayers plowed into American International Group. "We want a profit" on taxpayers' behalf, said panel chair Elizabeth Warren (who, by the way, is not a big fan of loan brokers.) "We are holding Treasury's feet to the fire." Well, here's an interesting development that Warren may've missed: United Guaranty Inc., a mortgage insurance company, had the best performance (by far) among the nation's six active writers of new MI policies. While every MI in the nation suffered brutal declines in new policies written in the first quarter (ranging from 39% to 80%), United Guaranty had a mere 9% fall-off in new business. Who owns UGI? Answer: AIG. A year ago it looked as though AIG would sell the unit, but the deal fell apart after it realized that the bidder (Uber bottom fisher Wilbur Ross) was getting too good of a price, or so we heard. More on that story in my weekend column…