Refinance Free Credit

Guggenheim Capital Markets, LLC, a registered broker/dealer headquartered in New York City with $100 billion in assets, said Monday that it’s the latest firm to jump into the whole loan mix for distressed mortgages — the company will expand upon its existing specialized fixed-income capabilities with the addition of a whole loan group, it [...]

The latest twist and turn in the wake of now widespread bond insurer downgrades is that some of the largest — notably MBIA Inc. (MBI: 4.82, -13.77%) and Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (ABK: 1.91, -6.83%) — are looking to essentially wipe out $125 billion in insurance on collateralized debt obligations tied to subprime and other [...]

It didn’t take long for last week’s downgrade of monoline bond insurer MBIA Inc. (MBI: 4.91, -12.16%) to hit the firm’s bottom line; the company said late Friday that it will likely have to post $7.4 billion in payments and collateral tied to its asset management business — a separate business line that underscores the [...]

Fiserv, Inc. (FISV: 48.25, +0.21%) said Monday that it had rolled out a new suite of preemptive mortgage default resources, including Predictive Risk Index Score Modeling (PRISM) and Home Retention Solutions, that enable financial institutions to proactively identify and contact troubled borrowers with customized repayment solutions to try to keep them out of foreclosure … [...]

Citigroup may be near another round of layoffs this week as it attempts to reach its goal of 6,000 layoffs in response to the deteriorating credit markets.  The company has already laid off approximately half that number, and sources inside the company say more are on the way.

This shouldn’t really surprise anyone.  Citi has been one of the hardest hit by bad mortgage bets and has done nearly everything in its power to stay afloat - including taking on large sums of capital from soveriegn wealth funds.

From Bloomberg:

Citigroup Inc. may begin another round of job reductions as soon as this week under a plan drawn up in March to cut the trading and investment-banking workforce by 10 percent, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

The largest U.S. bank has eliminated about half of the 6,000 jobs targeted since then, said the person, who declined to be identified because Citigroup hasn’t disclosed the plans publicly. Citigroup employs more than 300,000 people worldwide and has announced about 13,000 job reductions this year.

Citigroup has lost more than any company in the mortgage market rout and its shares tumbled 63 percent in the past year. Pandit, 51, was promoted in December to replace Charles O. “Chuck” Prince, who was ousted the previous month.

Citigroup said in January it would eliminate about 4,000 jobs in the securities division, and said two months later that the number had increased by about 2,000. Citigroup then said in April it would slash 7,000 jobs outside the investment-banking group over the next year, and executives have said further reductions are likely.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that employees may begin receiving termination notices this week.

Share This

There’s an old adage in the commercial property development business: it’s never the first investor, but usually the third or fourth, that ends up making money on a project. It’s an adage that seems apropos to the mortgage-backed securities business these days, as well, given that the market remains largely frozen amid the perception that [...]

We’ve noted indicators of pending softness in CRE from time to time in the past here at HW, but today a feature at Bloomberg underscores just how soft the commercial RE sector really is: Workers building the $3.5 billion Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas strip are getting used to their financiers from Deutsche [...]

It’s shaping up to be a tough summer for the investment banking crowd as Wall Street reels from financial blows tied to bad mortgages and a credit market gone quickly — and historically — south; both Citigroup (C: 18.88, -2.18%) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS: 179.21, -2.48%) made headline Monday for layoffs either underway [...]

We think it’s our job here in the BuzzPost to call it like we see it — and what we’re seeing this Monday morning from North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad is nothing less than either blind stupidity or record-setting hubris. In an op-ed “defense” published Monday by the Wall Street Journal, Conrad says that he never [...]

We have several large projects come to us every week that need funding.  We are seeking more private lenders (hedge funds, reits, private investors, etc.) to fund these projects.  If your fund is looking to invest in large projects, such as 5 star hotels, green projects, humanitarian projects, mall packages, coal mines, oil, skyscrapers, office buildings and complexes, mixed use commercial and much, much more, contact me at Lon @ cascadefallsinvestments.com.