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Tag Archives: Bank of America

Dems Get $32 Million Line of Credit from Bank of America

28 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by Craig in Bank of America, Congress, Democrats, Foreclosures, Obama administration, Politics, Wall Street

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$15 million, $17 million, Bank of America, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic National Committee, foreclosure, line of credit, moratorium, Obama administration

I’m sure the Obama administration’s opposition to a national foreclosure moratorium and its willingness to look forward and give the big banks, Bank of America for instance, a do-over on fraudulent court documents has absolutely nothing to do with this:

“Shortly after Labor Day, as polls continued to sink, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) realized it needed a cash infusion for the upcoming midterm elections. Its chairman, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, turned to the Bank of America to secure a $15 million revolving credit line. Then, in the middle of this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) got another loan from BofA for an additional $17 million.”

Nothing to see here. Move along.

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Foreclosuregate, Cont’d

20 Wednesday Oct 2010

Posted by Craig in economy, Foreclosures, Justice Department, Obama administration, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Bank of America, BlackRock, bonds, Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, foreclosures, internal review, Metlife, New York Federal Reserve, no errors, PIMCO

Bank of America has completed its “internal review” of alleged improprieties in its foreclosure proceedings–a review of 102,000 foreclosures that took all of 17 days–and found, surprise surprise, zero mistakes:

“Bank of America  announced on Monday that it would resume home foreclosures in nearly two dozen states, despite the running controversy over how banks handled tens of thousands of cases of homeowners facing eviction.

Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank and the servicer of roughly one in five American mortgages, insisted that it had not found a single example where a foreclosure proceeding was brought in error.”

Not so fast, says one state’s assistant attorney general involved in their own investigation:

“A day after the bank said it would once again pursue defaulting borrowers in the 23 states where foreclosures were overseen by the courts, judges in Florida said they were expecting even more challenges from defaulting homeowners.

…“There has been an attempt by some of the major servicers to indicate there are no problems,” said Patrick Madigan, an assistant attorney general in Iowa. “We’re not at the end of this process. We’re at the beginning.”

But BofA has much bigger problems than a few lawsuits from a few homeowners, the big boys are coming after them to buy back the mortgage bonds packed with toxic garbage that BofA was peddling:

“The fears behind mortgage bond-gate might be real after all. Reports indicate that Bank of America is has been asked to repurchase some of its mortgage bonds by some very prominent investors due to procedural failures. Who are those investors? BlackRock Inc. — the largest money manager in the world, PIMCO — the largest Bond fund investor, and the New York Federal Reserve are said to be among them…Metlife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, is expected to join this group of investors demanding repurchase.

Bank of America is the target thanks to its acquisition of Countrywide in 2008. These investors say that Countrywide failed to properly service mortgages which were repacked into bonds. How many bonds? According to Bloomberg, these investors want Bank of America to repurchase $47 billion worth.”

Here’s why this entire fiasco, from origination to securitization to foreclosure, is going to be difficult if not impossible to unwind. From a BofA June court filing:

“It appears as though many loans and other mortgage-related assets have been double and even triple-pledged to various constituencies”…[T]hat is the reason that two different banks sometimes try to simultaneously foreclose on the same home.”

Finally, the feds are getting in on the act, too:

“Members of President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force [Justice, Treasury, HUD, and the SEC] and other administration officials are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss the foreclosure crisis.”

Frankly, I have no confidence that anything substantive will come from this group. I see one of two outcomes. Either they open an investigation, bury it, and we never hear a word of it again, or they go after a few low-level flunkies and the MOTU skate. As usual.

To be continued…

Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?

16 Saturday Oct 2010

Posted by Craig in economy, Financial Crisis, Justice Department, Obama administration, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Angelo Mozilo, Bank of America, Countrywide, insider trading, Justice Department, lawsuit, Masters of the Universe, Securities and Exchange Commission, securities fraud

It certainly paid well for two former executives of Countrywide yesterday in the settlement of a civil lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission charging Angelo Mozilo, former CEO, and David Sambol, former president, with securities fraud and insider trading. A scam which netted the two a total of nearly $160 million.

The first two paragraphs of the story read like this:

“Angelo R. Mozilo, who as head of home-loan giant Countrywide was at the center of the housing boom and bust, agreed Friday to pay a record fine as part of a $73-million settlement of a government fraud lawsuit over the lender’s near-collapse.

The deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission requires Mozilo, the highest-profile figure to be accused of wrongdoing in the mortgage meltdown, to personally pay a $22.5-million fine. The government said it would be the largest penalty ever paid by a senior executive of a public company in an SEC settlement.”

Then come the “buts”:

“Mozilo…also agreed to pay $45 million in “ill-gotten gains” to former Countrywide Financial Corp. shareholders, who lost billions when the company’s stock price plunged as defaults on home loans surged. But Bank of America Corp., which bought Countrywide in 2008, and Countrywide’s insurers will pay that amount under terms of Mozilo’s employment contract.

Countrywide’s former president, David Sambol, agreed to pay $520,000 in fines and $5 million in restitution. Bank of America will reimburse him for the latter.”

So to recap, Mozilo pays $22.5 million, Sambol pays $520,000. During the period covered by the suit Mozilo received $141.7 million, Sambol $18.3 million, while Countrywide was losing $1.6 billion. But that’s just a snapshot:

“For years, Mr. Mozilo was among the highest-paid executives in America and his S.E.C. fine is a fraction of the vast wealth he amassed running Countrywide. In one eight-year period, from 2000 until he left the company in 2008, Mr. Mozilo received total compensation of $521.5 million, according to Equilar, a compensation research firm.”

Mozilo is still the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, but anyone who believes this DOJ will pursue criminal charges against any of the financial industry’s Masters of the Universe hasn’t been paying attention. The next one prosecuted will be the first. Gotta keep looking forward, you know.

Banksters Up To Their Old Tricks

09 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by Craig in bailout, economy, Financial Crisis, Politics, Wall Street

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Bank of America, Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, hiding, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, risk, Wall Street

Wall Street is up to its old tricks again, juggling the books to make their levels of debt appear lower at the end of the quarter which….drum roll please….increases their bonuses:

“Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup are the big names among 18 banks revealed by data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to be hiding their risk levels in the past five quarters by lowering the amount of leverage on the balance sheet before making it available to the public, The Wall Street Journal reported.

…There is nothing illegal about the practice, though it means that much of the time investors can have little idea of the risks the any bank is really taking.”

…“You want your leverage to look better at quarter-end than it actually was during the quarter, to suggest that you’re taking less risk,” William Tanona, a former Goldman analyst and current head of U.S. financials research at Collins Stewart, told The Journal.

Some things never change.

Too Big To Jail?

28 Sunday Mar 2010

Posted by Craig in bailout, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Justice Department, Politics, Wall Street

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Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Bloomberg, conspiracy, General Electric, interest rates, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, too big to fail, Wall Street

Only in the bizarro world of high finance can one be named as a co-conspirator and not subject to criminal charges:

“March 26 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

…None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing.”

A government list of previously unidentified “co- conspirators” contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.’s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24.

Apparently “too big to fail” is also “too big to jail.”

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