Goldman Sachs
By Krista Franks | 09/01/2011
The New York Department of Financial Services is including several stipulations with its approval of Goldman Sachs' sale of its Litton Loan Servicing unit to special servicer Ocwen Financial.
Goldman Sachs has agreed to principal reductions of $53 million on Litton mortgages. In addition, the agreement forged between Goldman and New York's banking superintendent addresses the illegal practice of robo-signing and includes rules to ensure only the note-holder pursues foreclosure actions.
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By Krista Franks | 08/10/2011
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is suing Goldman Sachs in hopes of recovering losses it incurred as the result of two failed credit unions - U.S. Central and Western Corporate federal credit unions. The complaint filed in a California district court alleges Goldman Sachs misrepresented the risks associated with residential mortgage-backed securities bought by the two credit unions, ultimately leading to their demise. It's the fourth securities-related suit NCUA has filed, and the agency says there's more to come.
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By Alyse Rzemek | 07/15/2011
Holliday, Fengolio, Fowler (HFF), a commercial real estate and capital markets services firm, announced Douglas Opalka has joined the firm as a managing director in its Austin, Texas office. Opalka will be in charge of the local debt placement team and will co-director the office with Sean Sorrell.
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By Carrie Bay | 06/06/2011
Goldman Sachs has agreed to sell its residential mortgage servicing subsidiary to Ocwen Financial Corp. Ocwen will pay $263.7 million in cash to acquire Litton Loan Servicing. In addition to the cash purchase price, Ocwen will lay out another $337 million to take care of some of Litton's outstanding debt.
The deal will result in Ocwen's acquisition of a servicing portfolio of approximately $41.2 billion in unpaid principal balance of primarily non-prime residential mortgage loans.
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By Carrie Bay | 06/02/2011
Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney's office have issued a subpoena to Goldman Sachs for information related to the company's trading of mortgage bonds backed by subprime loans. The action against the Wall Street institution stems from a congressional report issued in April by a Senate subcommittee on the key causes of the financial crisis. The U.S. Justice Department, SEC, and New York's attorney general have reportedly launched their own investigations into Goldman's dealings during the run-up to the mortgage meltdown.
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By Carrie Bay | 05/17/2011
Industry analysts, economists, even lawmakers generally concede that the pooling of risky subprime mortgages into secondary market securities fueled the economic collapse that almost brought the nation's financial system to its knees. But New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is looking for proof that major financial institutions were hocking these dicey mortgage-backed securities during the days leading up to the collapse of the housing market, knowing that these transactions would result in billions of dollars in mortgage losses.
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By Joy Leopold | 03/23/2011
Another lawsuit centered around mortgage securities backed by faulty loans may be brewing. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) has threatened to sue four banks and investment firms unless they refund more than $50 billion for mortgage-related bonds that went bad. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan Chase are named as the targets of NCUA's legal threats. The regulator says mortgage securities sold by these companies led to the collapse of five wholesale credit unions.
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By Carrie Bay | 03/21/2011
Word on the street is that Goldman Sachs is looking to sell off its mortgage servicing arm, Texas-headquartered Litton Loan Servicing. One publication's blog post says Litton never proved to be the distressed mortgage cash-cow that Goldman had hoped, while another financial news outlet reports that the servicing unit is indeed unprofitable at the moment. Industry data show that Litton's servicing portfolio has contracted by nearly 35 percent over the last two years.
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By Joy Leopold | 01/25/2011
A recent report by Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA) says Bank of America and Wells Fargo are two of the most sued financial service firms in the United States.
IRA says that mortgage exposure is what is causing these two banks and others in similar situations to be embroiled in so many federal legal cases. In addition, the firm points to the added burden many of these companies are also facing in litigation that will not reach federal court, such as cases involving foreclosure practices.
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By Carrie Bay | 12/17/2010
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is reportedly investigating lenders' procedures for packaging home mortgages into securities bonds for sale to investors.
Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the probe, says the SEC sent subpoenas last week to Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Wells Fargo. The subpoenas focus on the earliest stage of the mortgage securitization process, in particular, the role of master servicers.
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