A federal appeals court has rejected government efforts to reverse a September ruling by Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney ordering the government to turn over various memos, emails and presentations to investors in litigation involving the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac net worth sweep. On Jan. 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in favor of investors in the two government-sponsored enterprises, upholding Sweeney’s earlier decision, and ordered the government to release 48 of the 56 documents because they don’t merit privilege treatment. Eight of the documents were...

When it comes to cashing out of large blocks of GSE common stock, sellers face the ‘Roach Motel’ syndrome: investors check, but can’t necessarily check out…

Real estate investment trust New Residential Investment Corp. has been quietly trolling for mortgage servicing assets the past year and snagged a big one this week when it agreed to buy $97 billion in agency rights from Citigroup. Now comes the hard part: incorporating the receivables into an already fast-growing portfolio and convincing regulators at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Ginnie Mae officials that it has both the management structure and the financial wherewithal to handle so much product. According to a tally from Inside Mortgage Finance, since early December New Residential has acquired...

The Mortgage Bankers Association this week released an updated proposal to establish multiple privately owned guarantors to promote competition in the marketplace. In the MBA’s blueprint, the guarantors would be organized as privately-owned utilities with a regulated rate of return. “The more market participants that compete...

In many cases, the fourth quarter drop was due to poor performance on servicing hedges.

Fairholme: “Only the disingenuous would assert that recapitalization of these companies would take decades and come at taxpayers’ expense…”

A fun fact for nonbanks: Depository institutions among the top 50 servicers reduced their holdings by 1.2 percent during the same period.

The largest Fannie/Freddie servicers are still Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Bank of America, but all three continue to shrink their exposure to GSE product...

The trade group’s blueprint also throws cold water on any piecemeal “recap and release” plan for Fannie and Freddie.

"The legal challenges [to firing Cordray] must be very legitimate or they would have tossed him by now," said one industry official...