To Our Clients, Colleagues and Friends:
· “The special servicing platform will be combined with our master servicing, default department, and real estate auction business to synergistically work together as a fully integrated platform to maximize the success of opportunistic investments in mortgage assets.” This is from a recent press release by someone we like and admire. We won’t name him as we don’t want to embarrass him, but isn’t this about the worst writing you’ve seen in awhile?
· Why we worry about Wamu: As of Q1 2008 Wamu had some ugly assets on its balance sheet.
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$ 12 billion Construction loans |
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$ 15 billion Sub-prime |
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$ 45 billion HELOCS |
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$ 56 billion Option arms |
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$116 billion TOTAL HIGH RISK LOANS |
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$24 billion Capital |
That’s $116 billion of HELOCS, sub-prime, construction loans and Option Arms alone v. $24 billion in capital.