A sober reminder of the dark side of fast growth.
WAMU
I should have listened to my mom and become a lawyer. As WaMu was collapsing in 2008, the FDIC brokered a good deal whereby they seized WaMu then JP Morgan Chase bought it for $1.9b. But the speedy two-day deal now leaves a giant question: who should cover billions in WaMu legal liabilities? Chase says
The financial crisis that began in August 2007 and continues today (October 2009) has—at least for now—brought consumer banking back to “savings and loan” basics. Up to the 1980s, before loan securitization found its footing, consumer banking was community focused, bank reps knew their clients’ current and projected finances intimately, and funded home loans from
After failing and being seized by the FDIC earlier this year, Indymac is now on the block to be bought within 90 days. The FDIC has taken on the role of investment bank as the bank failures mount. After the Indymac failure depleted the FDIC fund, FDIC head Sheila Bair took on a new approach,
The economy is pretty bad right now. Yesterday I was putting a foreclosed sign on my house, and while I was doing that, another guy came by and repossessed my car. Did someone mention cars? Stock markets overnight got hammered after the Senate rejected the automaker bailout plan, and our stocks markets are expected to
Twenty-two banks have failed so far in 2008. After Indymac failed in July, which was the largest of the year at that time, the FDIC saw that their reserves for taking over failing banks were going to disappear in a hurry. So they started acting as investment bank of sorts by brokering deals where they’d
Downey Financial, a Newport CA based savings and loan, was seized by the FDIC Friday and sold to US Bank in a deal the FDIC brokered. As of October 22, Downey’s loans no longer collecting interest were 15.7 percent of bank assets. Most of these bad loans were from their portfolio of about $7 billion
After being taken over by the FDIC and sold to JP Morgan Chase for $1.9b, WAMU announced that it is closing its Pleasanton campus and cutting about 1600 jobs in the Bay Area: The bank’s East Bay call center, where roughly 1,200 workers answer customer inquiries about credit cards and consumer banking, will close by
On Monday night Wells Fargo was in first position to acquire Wachovia. Then on Tuesday morning, it turned out that Citigroup would pay $2.16 billion for the bulk of Wachovia, including five depository institutions, and assume its senior and subordinated debt. Wachovia would retain ownership of its retail brokerage unit, AG Edwards, and its asset-management
Who says investment banking is deal. The new deal brokers on The Street are the Fed, Treasury and, increasingly, the FDIC. Under Sheila Bair, the FDIC’s role in the credit crunch is getting larger and larger. When Indymac went down, it caused great concern that the FDIC’s industry-funded deposit insurance fund would quickly be depleted
JP Morgan Chase is the big winner in the market carnage.
Last night, as I was taunting my dog with a hunk of cheddar cheese waved above her nose, the look in her eye reminded me that there is talk among loan agents of a mythical refi boom. Not your parent’s refi boom, or the 48 minute refi boom in January, but a real one. Of
Consider this list of news for the week (even though it’s only Monday): Best Buy Co. agreed to buy Napster (digital downloading of music) for $121 million. Reddy Ice Holdings (the largest US manufacturer of packaged ice) suspended its quarterly cash dividend indefinitely and said it was undertaking a strategic review of its business. 5,000
Remember when the mortgage business was fun? People enjoyed their work, and the industry stayed out of the news? When your parents didn’t quite know what you did for a living? When rates mattered more than underwriting guidelines? When we thought that the worst was over – people would liken this to a baseball game
Credit Spreads What is a “credit spread”? It is a yield difference, usually compared to a US Treasury security with a similar maturity, which reflects the issuer’s credit quality. One indicator that the bank could be in trouble is the widening of its credit spreads, evidence that investors believe the debt is riskier. Washington Mutual’s
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