FHLB Will Stay in Topeka. After mulling a move to places like Kansas City and Denver, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka said it would stay put and build a new headquarters there. Construction on the $26 million, 80,000 square foot building will begin next year and employees anticipate a move to the new building in 2018. The bank needed a more modern and larger space than its current 60,000 square foot location offers. Freddie Prices $471 Million K-Deal. Freddie Mac priced a new offering of Structured Pass-Through Certificates backed by fixed-rate multifamily mortgages with seven-year terms. The company plans to issue more than $471 million in K-719 Certificates, which is expected to settle around Aug. 19. This is Freddie’s 15th K Certificate offering this year.
Although all 13 firms reported positive earnings on their origination and sales activity, many noted that production-related revenue did not keep pace...
The Federal Home Loan Bank system earned $678 million in the second quarter of 2015 and attributes the 32 percent year-over-year increase to higher gains on litigation settlements and derivatives as well as hedging activities. Total net income for the first half of the year was even higher than the previous year, according to figures compiled by the system’s Office of Finance. Net income for the first six months witnessed a 58 percent jump, to $1.69 billion. Litigation settlements accounted for $143 million in the second quarter, driven by FHLBank of Boston’s $135 million settlement. Those claims came directly from investments in non-agency mortgage-backed securities. Total FHLB assets for the first half of the year were pretty much flat at $916.9 billion, representing...
Real estate investment trusts that focus on the MBS market saw the value of their holdings slump again during the volatile second quarter of 2015. Top mortgage REITs reported a fair market value of $249.10 billion for their single-family MBS holdings as of the end of June. That was down 5.6 percent from the previous quarter, and it was the group’s lowest MBS portfolio valuation since the fourth quarter of 2011. The decline came...[Includes one data table]
The average daily trading volume in agency MBS increased to $189.0 billion in July, a rare occurrence for an asset that’s been under selling pressure this year. According to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, trading volume peaked in January at $245.9 billion and hasn’t looked that good since. In June, trading volume was an anemic $183.7 billion, the lowest reading of the year. Investors continue...
A federal appeals court in New Orleans has overturned a 2014 district court ruling, reviving two government MBS lawsuits that were initially dismissed because they were filed past the state’s established time limit. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s separate lawsuits against RBS Securities Inc., on one hand, and against Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, were both filed on Aug. 17, 2012. The complaints alleged that the banks misled investors about the credit quality of the mortgage loans that backed $840 million in non-agency MBS. The district court’s decision to dismiss, however, turned on...