“Unwarranted and false public allegations” have prompted Michael Perry, the former chairman and CEO of IndyMac, to mount a defense via a new website. His “Not Too Big to Fail” site offers “the facts about Mike Perry and IndyMac.” On the site, Perry takes aim at lawsuits against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as well as private litigation and audits by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Treasury. ...

Granting the chief financial officer additional oversight authority as proposed by House Republicans would be excessive for a relatively small agency such as Ginnie Mae, the agency’s president told lawmakers. Testifying during a recent House subcommittee hearing on legislative proposals on FHA and Ginnie Mae reform, Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer said that while he understands the committee’s concerns about the agency’s financial condition, he believes the provision is not necessary. Among other things, the proposal would give Ginnie Mae’s CFO a greater hand in overseeing operations to ensure that the agency is not...

Ginnie Mae has named PricewaterhouseCoopers as “Securitized Transaction Financial Advisor” for all multiclass securities transactions. Participants will be working with their new multiclass securitization advisor starting in October. All multiclass transaction documents must be emailed to GinnieMaeREMIC@us.pwc.com. The primary transaction contacts are Jim Campbell, Deal Management Team Lead (NY), at James.Campbell@us.pwc.com, (646) 471-6059, and Amanda Liu, Deal Management Team Lead (DC), at Amanda.Liu@us.pwc.com, (202) 414-1392...

Expect a gradual but deliberate increase in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee fees to a level that more closely reflects what a private market would charge, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced this week. In a speech at the American Mortgage Conference in Raleigh, NC, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco said that since Fannie and Freddie were placed into government conservatorship three years ago this month, the two government-sponsored enterprises have steadily increased g-fees and lessened the degree of cross subsidization in credit pricing. Yet, DeMarco noted, the GSEs’ current pricing for credit guarantees “is...

The outstanding supply of home-equity loans in the market declined further in the second quarter of 2011, hitting its lowest level in almost six years, but there are signs that the HEL market is at least stabilizing. The Federal Reserve reported a balance of $904.4 billion of home-equity lines of credit and closed-end second mortgages outstanding as of the end of June, down 2.3 percent from the first quarter and 9.2 percent lower than a year ago. The vast majority of the HEL market is on the books of banks, thrifts and credit unions, which collectively held $827.7 billion in portfolio. Finance companies, some of them owned by... [Includes two data]

In order to provide a benchmark that helps the private sector price mortgage credit, policy makers need to make an effort to replicate the standardization and uniformity currently provided by agency mortgage-backed securities, the managing director of Barclays Capital told lawmakers last week.

Mortgage lenders and servicers with large portfolios of seriously delinquent home loans have turned to “liquidating trust” structures as a financing alternative – with good results, according to credit rating agency DBRS. So far, the performance of six nonperforming loan securitizations with 14 outstanding tranches rated by DBRS has been stable and largely within expectations at the time of rating, said Quincy Tang, the rating agency’s senior vice president of structured finance. As of Sept. 6, all rated classes of one transaction (Residential Loan Trust 2008-2) have been paid in full, said Tang. The Class A notes in...

For a growing number of lenders, the decision to adopt a mortgage pipeline hedging strategy is fast becoming less of an innovative option and more about adapting to a business necessity to stay ahead of the curve, according to a white paper by MCT Trading Inc. MCT, a San Diego-based risk management and advisory services company, details in its recently issued paper the intricacies for mortgage bankers considering the switch from a best efforts delivery platform to a mandatory delivery model. "There are a number of different pitfalls lenders need to be cognizant of when making the move from best efforts loan sales to...

Securitization participants and financial services providers flatly rejected a proposal to create an independent federal board that would assign credit rating agencies to initially rate non-agency MBS, ABS and other structured finance transactions. In separate comments, two industry trade groups and Fitch Rating Services opposed the proposal, which is being studied by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Dodd-Frank Act instructs the SEC to study the concept and report back to Congress by July 2012 with its recommendations for regulatory or statutory changes. The idea of establishing a board to oversee credit rating agencies and address...

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have announced separate ratings of two new non-agency MBS over the past two weeks, making a little noise in the long slumbering non-agency MBS market. Fitch this week released a presale report on Redwood Trust’s next prime jumbo transaction, while S&P rated a securitization of seasoned subprime mortgages that drew flak because it got higher grades than the agency gave the U.S. government. The new Redwood transaction, Sequoia Mortgage Trust 2011-2, looks a lot like the company’s last issuance back in February. It’s backed by $375 million of squeaky-clean prime jumbo mortgages, most of which were originated by...