Top-Foren
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Gesamt | 147 | 640 |
| Börse | 106 | 377 |
| Talk | 18 | 184 |
| Hot-Stocks | 23 | 79 |
| Blockchain | 9 | 65 |
| DAX | 2 | 26 |
COOP News (ehemals: Wamu /WMIH)
Thread abonnieren
|
--button_text--
interessant
|
|
witzig
|
|
gut analysiert
|
|
informativ
|
IMO meine Berechnungen :
692 Milliarden Dollar x 40% = 276,8 Milliarden Dollar wurden nicht ordnungsgemäß in MBS Trusts eingebracht, so dass sie immer noch im Besitz von WMI-Tochtergesellschaften sind, die sie gegründet haben.
Die von der WMI-Tochter gegründeten MBS Trusts wurden bewusst so konzipiert, dass sie einen Mangel in der Rechtskette aufweisen. Aufgrund dieser fehlerhaften Eigentumskette sind die rechtmäßigen Eigentümer der meisten, wenn nicht sogar aller unsachgemäß übermittelten verbrieften Hypotheken (in die MBS Trusts), die WMI-Tochtergesellschaften, die sie geschaffen haben. So, wenn dieses zutreffend ist, dann konnten WMI Escrow Marker Inhaber alle $276.8 Milliarde in den unsachgemäß übertragenen Hypotheken in MBS Trusts und nicht gerade die vorteilhaften Interessen besitzen ($101 Milliarde I zuerst berechnet in den vorhergehenden Pfosten).
Mögliche maximale Rückflüsse = 276,8 Mrd. USD (Hypotheken, die WMI aufgrund unsachgemäßer Übertragung von verbrieften Krediten in MBS-Trusts gehören) + 101 Mrd. USD (Vorteilsbeträge, die nicht zu den unsachgemäß verbrieften Krediten gehören) = 377,8 Mrd. USD an WMI Escrow Marker Inhaber (ohne 11 Jahre Zinsen)
Optionen
( https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2008/pr08085.html )
"JPMorgan Chase erwarb das Bankgeschäft der Washington Mutual Bank im Rahmen einer von der Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation vermittelten Transaktion. Alle Einleger sind vollständig geschützt und es entstehen keine Kosten für den Einlagensicherungsfonds[DIF].
JPMorgan Chase erwarb das Vermögen, übernahm die qualifizierten Finanzkontrakte und leistete eine Zahlung von 1,9 Mrd. USD. Ansprüche von Eigenkapitalgebern [Equity], nachrangigen und vorrangigen Schuldnern wurden nicht erworben.
Die Washington Mutual Bank hat auch eine Tochtergesellschaft, Washington Mutual FSB, Park City, Utah. Sie haben ein Gesamtvermögen von 307 Mrd. USD und Einlagen von 188 Mrd. USD.
Donnerstag Abend wurde Washington Mutual vom Office of Thrift Supervision und dem FDIC als Empfänger geschlossen." [und wie wir wissen gleich an JPMC rübergereicht].
Wer sich einmal einen genauern Überblick verschaffen möchte, wie sich die "Asset-Deposit-Liabillitie-Bewertung" entwickelte, kann dazu gerne die Ausführungen zur Zivilklage der Deutschen Bank gegen die FDIC anschauen... eine sehr detaillierte Beschreibung des gesamten Ablaufes ( https://www.google.com/...on.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0MkWQ-IZP4vzFYciWpLDZy )
Nur zur Klarstellung: Wir reden hier von einer Diskussion bei der FDIC ab Dienstag Nachmittag (23.09.), was denn eigentlich genau als Assets, Liabilities und Deposits angesetzt werden soll. Dazu ging es bei den Finanzspezialisten (ich hoffe mal, dass diese Bezeichnung auf die Leute zutrifft...) richtig rund...
Und ebenfalls am Dienstag, den 23. September 2008 hat die FDIC JPMC offiziell eingeladen, auf WaMu zu bieten.
Jetzt frage ich mich, wie sollte denn überhaupt ein Bieter ein Gebot abgeben, wenn er gar nicht weiß, was er alles übernehmen muss... geschweige denn überhaupt die WaMu so schnell bewerten konnte...
Die FDIC machte für den externen Bieterprozess verschiedene Strukturvorschläge, um potenziellen Käufern, die nicht alle Verbindlichkeiten übernehmen wollten, Optionen zu bieten (siehe Dokument Punkt "E" auf Seite 13)..."Die Bietungsstruktur wurde bewusst so eingerichtet, dass die Bieter die Wahl treffen können, welche Verbindlichkeiten ihrer Meinung nach übernommen werden müssen, um die Transaktion voranzutreiben."
So so, um die Transaktion voran zu treiben... das hat die FDIC ja in der Tat gemacht, als sie noch am Donnerstag Abend Knall auf Fall JPMC als Käufer bestimmte. Herzlichen Glückwunsch. Das war die schnellste Unternehmensanalyse ever... und ein noch schnellerer Zuschlag, ohne dass überhaupt noch andere Interessenten, zu einer Analyse kommen konnten, geschweige denn zu einem Gebot fähig gewesen sein konnten.
So, wir sind am Mittwoch, den 24.09.2008 angekommen, wo JPMC bis zum Abend alles checkte und zu einem Gebot von 1,888 Mrd.$ kam (und dabei eine der FDIC-Optionen für den Externen Bieterprozess wählte). Bis zum Abend hatte die das geschafft und gaben ihr Gebot ab. Die OTS beschlagnahmte (DANN) bekanntlich die WaMu Bank, übergab sie an die FDIC, die akzeptierte das JPMC-Gebot und gab ihnen die Bank. In der Zeit hätte ich mir kaum ein Butterbrot geschmiert.
Wenn Ihr denkt, ich würde absichtlich übertreiben, lasse ich einfach noch einmal die Ausführungen der Deutschen Bank auf Seite 20 sprechen: " Die OTS und die FDIC haben beschlossen, WaMu Mitte oder Ende September 2008 zu schließen; die FDIC traf sich am 22. September mit potenziellen Bietern in New York City; die FDIC veröffentlichte den Transaction Recap [also diese oben angesprochenen Optionen von Punkt "E"] am späten Nachmittag oder frühen Abend des 23. Septembers; die FDIC verteilte das P&A-Abkommen in Entwurfsform am Abend des 23. Septembers; die FDIC gab Antworten auf häufig gestellte Fragen am späten Nachmittag des 24. Septembers bekannt; die Gebote gingen am Abend des 24. September ein [hehehe... Gebot"e" ist besonders witzig]. Am 25. September hat das FDIC Board das JPMC-Gebot genehmigt und den P&A-Vertrag abgeschlossen. FDIC und JPMC haben das P&A zwischen dem 26. und 28. September 2008 überarbeitet..."
Das ist auch sehr interessant, dass man nach dem Kauf die Übernahmebedingungen noch überarbeitet... alle Achtung.
Das waren im Großen und Ganzen die Hauptaussagen der Deutschen Bank zu dem Übernahmewahnsinn. Und das war alles nur nebenbei bemerkt, weil die Deutsche Bank ja gar nicht darauf aus war, die Übernahme an sich anzugehen... das war nur rückblickend aus der 2015er Sicht.
Von mir nur mal zur Klarstellung, der Wertefindung damals, dem angeblichen Kaufpreis und der unglaublichen Meisterleistung einer reibungslosen Vergabe, bei der einem schon etwas schwindelig werden konnte.
LG
union
Optionen
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/...sg.aspx?message_id=150897731
Optionen
https://seekingalpha.com/pr/...s-global-financial-services-conference
Nichts geschieht ohne Risiko,aber ohne Risiko geschieht auch nichts....!
Optionen
Tja,worauf warten denn die Käufer bei Mr......?
ODER
Die wissen bestimmt mehr und lassen uns noch zappeln bis zum 26.09.19 !?!?
warten,warten und noch mehr warten
Wir sind definitiv Weltmeister im gedulden .Den Sieg kann uns keiner mehr nehmen ,Scherz Ironie off !
Optionen
Optionen
2019-09-05_coop_tageschart.png (verkleinert auf 72%)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...er-group-inc-present-200000330.html
Optionen
Bei den ganzen Informationen, die sich im Laufe der Zeit angesammelt haben, ist es wichtig, die diese richtig zuordnen zu können, weil man sonst die aktuellen Geschehnisse und Diskussionspunkte durcheinander wirft. Deswegen versuche ich einmal, im Blick auf den finanziellen Aspekt, einfach und kurz zu beschreiben, was zu den wichtigsten „drei Säulen“ gehört. Wer mag, kann auch die sich anschließende ausführlichere Beschreibung zusätzlich lesen… und wer noch Fragen oder auch Anregungen hat, kann mir gerne per Boardmail schreiben, denn ab und zu versuche ich diese Basisinformationen hier und im Escrow-Thread zu posten.
Die (reorganisierte) Firma [betrifft nur die COOP-Aktie]
Dieser Punkt ist derzeit am besten nachzuvollziehen. Im Grunde genommen handelt es sich nur um eine Firma, die an der Börse gehandelt wird. Diese „COOP“-Aktien, wie sie heute heißen, haben alle Leute, die schriftlich dem Reorganisationsplan (POR7) zugestimmt haben, in ihrem Depot eingebucht bekommen. Und zwar im Umtausch zu den damals besessenen insolventen WMI-Aktien. Und in diesem Forum ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/coop-news-ehemals-wamu-wmih-461347?page=0 ) wird aktuell zu dieser Aktie diskutiert.
Der Wert dieses Punktes macht allein der aktuelle Aktienkurs aus.
Wer einen kurzen Abriss zur geschichtlichen Entwicklung bis heute haben möchte, kann den nächsten Absatz bis zum nächsten Punkt weiter lesen… wen das nicht interessiert, macht weiter beim nächsten Punkt, „der Wasserfall“.
2012 fing alles an, als die reorganisierte Firma aus der Insolvenz hervorging. Damals wurde die Firma mit etwas Bargeld und einer vergünstigten Kreditmöglichkeit ausgestattet, um ein neues Geschäftsfeld zu finden. Die Firma hatte den Namen „WMI Holdings Corp“ (WMIH) und wurde auch schon bald an der OTC-Börse gehandelt… ohne ein operatives Geschäft zu haben. Zwischenzeitlich wurde KKR als großer neuer Investor gefunden, durch den auch eine größere Summe für einen Firmenkauf zur Verfügung stand.
Erste Fusion am 11.05.2015 der WMI Holdings Corp. und änderte den Namen gleichzeitig in WMIH Corp ( https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933136/.../d924385d8k12g3.htm )
2018 war es dann soweit. Eine andere Firma „Nationstar“ wurde gekauft und die Fusion wurde offiziell am 31.07.2018 zwischen der WMIH-Corp. und Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. Vollzogen. Daraus ging die WMIH hervor und wurde noch unter dem gleichen Namen (WMIH) an der Börse gehandelt.
Am 9. Oktober 2018 wurde neben einem Resplit von 1:12 auch die Umbenennung der Firma/Aktien von WMIH in Mr. Cooper (COOP) beschlossen.
Seitdem läuft alles unter diesem neuen Firmen- und Aktiennamen.
Dieser Teil ist unabhängig von dem Wasserfall und den spekulativen Alt-WMI-Werten! Das heißt, die restlichen Gelder des Liquidating Trusts (siehe unten) und auch die möglichen Gelder aus den Performing Trusts (siehe unten) haben hier mit der Firma nichts zu tun. Die Firma wirtschaftet unabhängig davon und selbständig als börsennotiertes Unternehmen. Es gibt auch Spekulationen, dass alte WMI-Werte bzw. Hypotheken doch Einfluss auf COOP nehmen können... sicher auszuschließen ist es zumindest nicht.
Zur spannenden WaMu-Zeit vom Bankraub bis zur Reorganisation geht es hier ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/...wamu-wmih-461347?page=3114#jumppos77867 )
Der Wasserfall [betrifft nur die ESCROWS]
Mit Wasserfall bezeichnen wir die gesamte Abwicklungsarbeit, die nach der Reorganisation dafür sorgt, dass die übrig gebliebenen „Gläubiger“, so weit das möglich ist, ihr Geld bekommen. Der Liquitation Trust (WMI-LT) ist mit dieser Aufgabe betreut und im Escrow-Thread ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/der-escrow-thread-494496 ) wird alles Wichtige zu dieser Trustarbeit geschrieben.
Der WMI-LT geht nur mit dem Geld um, das er schon zur Verfügung hat. Keinerlei andere Werte spielen in dieser Abwicklungsarbeit eine Rolle. Auch nicht die FDIC oder irgend wer sonst. Es ist ein „abgeschlossener Raum“, in dem das alles in einer festen Reihenfolge abläuft. Der Wert dieses Punktes machen allein die Escrows aus.
Wo sich diese Abwicklungsarbeit befindet, wie sie weiter geht und was am Ende für die Escrows übrig bleibt, versuche ich im nächsten Abschnitt zu beschreiben. Ansonsten bitte bei nächsten Punkt („Mögliche Werte“) weiter lesen.
Die Abwicklungsarbeit geht streng der Reihe nach und den aktuellen Stand kann man hier in einer Grafik erkennen ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/...crow-thread-494496?page=170#jumppos4268 ).
Der Wert dieses Punktes für uns ergibt sich aus der Betrachtung der verfügbaren finanziellen Mitteln und der Auszahlungsreihenfolge (jetzt nur noch Tranche 5 und zuletzt Tranche 6, in der wir uns befinden):
Derzeit hat der WMI-LT maxiimal 50 Mio.$ an Geld noch übrig. Zusätzlich sind noch Aktien in der "DEE" vorhanden, die bald noch an die Aktionäre verteilt werden.
Die Auszahlungsreihenfolge:
Tranche 5: Hier haben wir die Bonds (Klasse 17a&b) und die Klasse 18, wo sich Claims befinden, die weniger Chancen haben, da Geld zu bekommen. Gut 38 Mio$ stehen dort schon fest und müssen ausgezahlt werden. Der rest ist noch nicht klar, weil der WMILT noch nichts genaues dazu geschrieben hat... wir hoffen, in der Verhandlung am 26. September etwas genaueres zu erfahren.
Tranche 6: Hier warten die TPS-Vorzugsescrows, unsere verschiedenen Escrowarten und die DIMEs (?) auf das Geld, was im Wasserfall bis hierher noch übrig ist. Dieses Restegeld besteht dann aus dem übrig bleibenden Geld aus Tranche 5, der Auflösung der letzten Reserven und der letzten Steuerrückzahlungen, sofern die noch nicht fertig waren. Und das wird dann alles zu 75% an die Vorzugsescrows und zu 25% an die Stammaktienescrows aufgeteilt… womit die Arbeit des WMI-LT erledigt ist und die Restabwicklung zum Insolvenzfall geschlossen wird. Unklar ist aber noch, ob es Geld aus den LIBOR-Klagen gibt. Der WMILT hat da die Möglichkeit bestätigt aber konnte dazu noch nichts Genaueres sagen...
Diese ersten beiden Punkte sind also Punkte, die man recht klar nachvollziehen kann. Da geht es nicht um irgend welchen Szenarien, die da auf einmal Geld in die Kassen spülen. Um diese doch ziemlich umstrittenen Möglichkeiten geht es in dem dritten Punkt...
Mögliche Werte [betrifft die Escrows außerhalb des Wasserfalls]
Hier sind wir im Reich des Möglichen… kann alles sein, muss aber nicht, also kann man da geteilter Meinung sein. Ich stelle hier nur die Punkte zusammen, die da hauptsächlich im Gespräch sind und auch waren. Wer detaillierteres dazu wissen möchte, kann unter den jeweiligen Stichpunkten die Forumssuche gebrauchen, sich die Arbeit machen, alles in den Threads nachzulesen oder in den passenden Threads weiter mitlesen. Neben den beiden oben schon erwähnten Threads würde ich noch den „Info-Thread: ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/wmih-cooper-info-405067 ) erwähnen, wo eine Infosammlung ohne große weitere Diskussion geführt wird.
Die folgenden Punkte betreffen erst einmal nicht die COOP-Aktien und betreffen auch nicht den Wasserfall:
Die Performing Trusts
Hier geht es um von der alten WMI vor der Insolvenz verpackte Kredite, von denen sich Einlagenwerte, Zinsen oder Servicegebühren seit der Insolvenz (2008) bis heute (2018) bei den jeweilig zuständigen Treuhändern angesammelt haben sollen. Wie viel das heute ist, ist völlig unklar, denn es ist bis heute nicht klar heraus zu bekommen, ob die Werte tatsächlich uns gehören oder anderen zustehen. „Ob“ und „wie viel“ sind da die Fragen aller Fragen. Die Schätzungen gehen von mehr als 100Mrd.$ aus bis hin zu 0$.
Zeitlich soll das, den Gesetzen zufolge, an dem Punkt der Insolvenzabwicklung hängen, an dem die „senior Gläubiger“ durch die Auszahlung im Wasserfall befriedigt wurden. Erst dann dürften Werte für nachrangige Gläubiger (wir) freigegeben werden. Und das wäre mit der Erledigung der Tranche 4 gegeben. Und mit der Aufnahme der Tranche 5 und der Bearbeitung der Bonds soll sich zeigen, dass diese Performing Trust werte endlich an uns ausgezahlt werden. Der Auszahlungsweg soll über die Verwahrstellen (Zentralverwahrer USA oder EUROPA) direkt zum Broker erfolgen und in die Depots eingebucht werden… also Cash. Demnach werden die Aufzeichnungen der Escrows gebraucht, um die Besitzer ordnungsgemäß zu bestimmen und die Werte passend zu versenden.
FDIC
Bei den Abrechnungsseiten der FDIC wird z.B. der Kaufpreis von 1,9 Mrd.$ angegeben. Aber die eigentliche Frage dabei ist, wieso hat JPMC für 1,9 Mrd.$ über 40 Mrd. Assets zu viel übernommen? Und darauf hat die FDIC keine Antwort, obwohl der „Assetüberhang“ nachweisbar ist.
In einem kürzlichen Antwortbrief schrieb ein Leitender Spezialist für strategische Operationen der FDIC: „Die Insolvenzverwaltung verfolgt potenzielle Ansprüche gegen andere Banken im Zusammenhang mit der Manipulation bestimmter Referenzsätze und -märkte (LIBOR, Zinsswaps, ISDAfix, Treasury Securities, Credit Default Swaps und Devisenkurse).“
( https://www.ariva.de/forum/...wamu-wmih-461347?page=3148#jumppos78719 ). Das kann bedeuten, dass das die Aufgaben der FDIC (und auch des WMI-LT) sind oder auch, dass diese aktiv daran arbeiten bzw. noch arbeiten werden. Die Bilanz der Insolvenzverwaltung der FDIC zur Washington Mutual Bank findet man hier ( https://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/wamu.html ) unter Punkt XII. Aber so lange der Insolvenzprozess noch aktiv und nicht offiziell auch von der FDIC geschlossen ist, bleibt die FDIC eine Möglichkeit, die man im Auge behalten sollte.
Erinnern wir uns auch, wie inkompetent die FDIC von Richterin Walrath dargestellt wurde ( https://www.ariva.de/forum/...wamu-wmih-461347?page=2812#jumppos70314 ) das schreit ja gerade danach, dass Fehler durch die FDIC gemacht wurden.
TPS
TPS ist ein Indizpunkt, kein eigener Punkt für mögliche Werte. Aber wenn man TPS zum Ende des Insolvenzprozesses genauer beobachtet, bekommt man unweigerlich den Eindruck, dass hier am Ende mit den Escrows der letzten Klasse zu rechnen ist. Denn dort befinden sich auch die TPS-Vorzugs-Escrows… mit den gleichen Anspruchsrechten, wie wir alle. TPS würde nie freiwillig Mrd.$ in den Wind schreiben und sich mit wertlosen Escrows abspeisen lassen. Da sind sicherlich Absprachen gelaufen, die TPS überzeugt hat, sich dort platzieren zu lassen… wie gesagt, nur ein Indiz… aber ein sehr gutes.
LG
union
Optionen
Ich musste es in zwei Teilen, weil es irre lang ist.
--------------------------------------------------
Dmdmd2020 Sunday, 09/08/19 06:52:57 AM
Re: Large Green post# 586670 0
Post # of 587136
§
I have decided to post again on IHub despite getting hacked in mid July 2019.
IMO...DD is too important to keep quiet.
My combined posts from yesterday on boardpost.net are as followed:
Per article published on April 03, 2011
https://shadowproof.com/2011/04/03/...solved-chain-of-title-problems/
“03
APR
2011
David Dayen
I am definitely looking forward to tonight’s 60 Minutes special on foreclosure fraud. In it, the head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, will call for a cleanup Superfund to cleanse the country of toxic mortgages.
Banks so poorly handled documentation on millions of mortgages that many today cannot prove that they own the homes they want to foreclose on. The resulting rash of lawsuits from people seeking to save their homes has one of the government’s top banking regulators worried that the torrent of litigation will delay the real estate market’s recovery.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Sheila Bair tells Scott Pelley banks should be forced to contribute billions to a clean-up fund that will help stressed homeowners stay in their homes and stave off lawsuits – there are 30,000 already – that threaten the economic rebound […]
Like last year, banks are expected to foreclose on a million mortgages this year, a scenario that could generate more lawsuits over mismanaged paperwork. “I think that this litigation could easily get out of control,” says Bair. “…We’re already feeling like we’re falling behind it,” She thinks a large clean-up pool funded by the banks that would pay homeowners to accept a bank’s ownership claim without a lawsuit is necessary. “I would assume it would be billions [that the fund would need],” Bair tells Pelley.
It sounds like 60 Minutes actually got this and reported it correctly. Lynn Szymoniak, one of the leading experts in foreclosure document fraud, is profiled in the piece. You will see forged paperwork, misidentified dates, and fabricated documents.
Now, regardless of what you think of the proposed mortgage settlement, and the banksters’ counteroffer, it’s important to note that what Bair’s talking about would have to exist separate from that. Attorneys General or even federal banking regulators do not have the authority to waive claims in state courts on behalf of homeowners. So this Superfund would be a separate event.
And the more banks resist it, the more liable they will become. In an important case this week, a judge in Alabama dismissed a foreclosure because the bank failed to comply with the pooling and servicing agreement for transferring mortgages to the trust. This would be a stunning ruling if applied broadly, though whether or not it will stand as precedent across other states remains to be seen; it’s far too early in the process to determine that. But we know that banks simply did not convey mortgages to trusts properly as a general rule. Foreclosure fraud can be seen as a coverup for that original sin. And if state courts are starting to make rulings based on that sin, banks will be stuck and unable to pursue foreclosures on tens of millions of loans.
The ruling in favor of the borrower endorses an argument we have made since last year on this blog, that the pooling and servicing agreement stipulated a specific set of transfers be undertaken to convey the borrower note (the IOU) to the securitization trust within a specified time frame. New York trust law was chosen to govern the trusts precisely because it is unforgiving; any act not specifically stipulated by the governing documents is deemed to be a “void act” and has no legal force. So if a the parties to a securitization failed to convey a note to the trust within the stipulated timetable, retroactive fixes don’t work. In this case, the note had been endorsed by the originator, Encore, but not by the later parties in the securitization chain as required in the pooling and servicing agreement.
There’s evidence to suggest that, particularly in hard-hit foreclosure states, judges have simply had enough and are dismissing cases left and right because of shoddy paperwork. So while the banks give off a public posture of calm, in reality the continued awareness of fraud is hampering their ability to process foreclosures and locking up the system. Exposés by the press have had an impact as well: after a story by Pro Publica about a trustee blocking a mortgage modification for a borrower in Georgia, the servicer postponed the foreclosure for two months to give an opportunity for the trustee to give up and allow the modification.
The point is that it’s not the captured political figures who will eventually give urgency to the banks to find a resolution – it’s the judicial process. And while that may take a while, it’s a potentially much more favorable scenario for borrowers than some settlement which threatens to strip away their due process rights. Bair’s Superfund idea only works if it is commensurate with the level of title problems, and only if it’s completely separate from punishment for fraud already committed in state courts.“
_____________________
The 60 minutes piece aired on April 03, 2011
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nCjK6GmsqRY
_____________________
Lynn Szymoniak is also detailed on my previous posts
https://www.boardpost.net/forum/...hp?topic=10656.msg250059#msg250059
____________________
Per article published on May 31, 2016
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/...ure-fraud-in-florida
“Inside the Abortive FBI Investigation of Illegal Foreclosure in Florida
The massive probe threatened to implicate the biggest banks in America, but sent just one woman to prison.
By David Dayen
|
May 31 2016, 8:30am
Six years ago, FBI agents in Jacksonville, Florida, wrote a memo to their bosses in Washington, DC, that could have unraveled the largest consumer fraud in American history. It went to the heart of the shady mortgage industry that precipitated the financial crisis, and the case promised to involve nearly every major bank in the country, honing in on the despicable practice of using bogus documents to illegally kick people out of their homes.
But despite impaneling a grand jury, calling in dozens of agents and forensic examiners, doing 75 interviews, issuing hundreds of subpoenas, and reviewing millions of documents, the criminal investigation resulted in just one conviction. And that convict—Lorraine Brown, CEO of the third-party company DocX that facilitated the fraud scheme—was sent to prison for duping the banks.
Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, VICE has obtained some 600 pages of documents from the Jacksonville FBI field office showing how agents conducted a sprawling investigation. (The Jacksonville case is also featured in my new book, Chain of Title.) The documents suggest the feds gained a detailed understanding of how and why the mortgage industry enlisted third-party companies to create false documents they presented to courts, as detailed in the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement, for which the big banks paid billions in civil fines. The banks' conduct is described in the settlement documents as "unlawful," and the Jacksonville FBI had it nailed almost two years earlier.
In these case files, you can see the seeds of an alternative history, one where dedicated law enforcement officials take on some of the country's most powerful financial institutions with criminal prosecutions.
So why didn't they?
"Given everything I see here, you'd have thought there would be many more convictions," said Timothy Crino, a now-retired FBI forensic accountant who reviewed case file documents. "If I was the case agent, I would be devastated."
At the center of the FBI investigation were the documents required to turn ordinary mortgages into mortgage-backed securities (MBS). During the housing bubble, banks bought up mortgages and packaged thousands of them at a time into MBS; this was known as securitization. The mortgages were transferred through a series of intermediaries into a trust, and the trust paid out investors with the revenue stream from homeowners' monthly payments.
In the end, of course, an upswing in the number of homeowner defaults led the MBS market to collapse disastrously, nearly taking down the worldwide financial system along with it. But there was another problem. In order to legally foreclose on homeowners, the financial institutions doing the foreclosing must produce documents proving the mortgages were properly transferred from their originators through intermediaries and on to the trusts, detailing every step along that chain.
"If evidence collected shows intent to defraud investors by the real estate trusts, this matter has the potential to be a top ten Corporate Fraud case." —FBI Criminal Investigative Division memo, June 2010
This is common sense: If you accuse someone of stealing your car, you have to establish that you actually owned it in the first place.
This chain of ownership was at the heart of the FBI investigation, according to a "request for resource enhancement" sent on May 25, 2010, from the Jacksonville office to Sharon Ormsby, then chief of the FBI Financial Crimes Section in Washington. (Ormsby no longer works for the bureau, and an attempt to contact her through the Society of Retired Special Agents of the FBI was unsuccessful.)
"The fraud in this matter was the result of negligence in the process of creating Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS)," the memo reads.
The Jacksonville FBI agents cite three reasons why the banks didn't properly transfer the mortgages. First, the sheer volume—millions of loans—would have made it too time-consuming to file each transfer in county courts in advance. Second, it would have been too costly, as each transfer triggers a recording fee of somewhere between $35 to $50. And finally, "during a booming market, the trusts did not recognize the need to secure the loans," because they didn't believe it would ever be called into question in the courts.
The Jacksonville FBI memo claims the trusts committed fraud by reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the credit rating agencies, and investors that they had clear title to the properties when they actually didn't. And agents present evidence that mortgage-servicing companies and their law firms hired third-party outfits to falsify the mortgage documents needed to foreclose after the fact.
Among those companies was DocX in Alpharetta, Georgia, which provided "default services" for mortgage-servicing companies and their law firms; when a loan went into default, they came to DocX for assistance. Because the company was a subsidiary of Jacksonville-based Lender Processing Services (LPS), the primary default services provider in the United States, the Jacksonville FBI office had jurisdiction over the case.
It used to be fun to work at DocX, one employee said in an FBI interview. Now, it was more like a "sweat shop."
"LPS and other default services created false and fraudulent documents which appeared to support their foreclosure positions," the memo reads. "LPS and the associated foreclosure mills utilized these false and fictitious docs in Courts across the nation to foreclose on homeowners."
It wasn't even that difficult to discover the falsehoods when you actually looked at the documents. Lynn Szymoniak, a West Palm Beach attorney who specialized in white-collar insurance fraud, fell into foreclosure in July 2008, and got sued by the trustee of her mortgage, Deutsche Bank. But when she finally received her mortgage assignment, it was dated October 17, 2008, three months after Deutsche Bank filed for foreclosure. So at the time of the foreclosure filing, Deutsche Bank didn't legally own the loan over which it sued her.
Adding to the chaos, one of the so-called witnesses on Szymoniak's mortgage assignment, Korell Harp, was in state prison in Oklahoma at the time he supposedly signed the document. (Ironically, Harp was in prison for identity theft, even as his own identity was being stolen for use in foreclosure documentation.) The copy of the promissory note was a hastily executed cut-and-paste job, fabricated after the fact. A woman named Linda Green signed the mortgage assignment in Szymoniak's case in her capacity as the vice president of American Home Mortgage Servicing Inc.; she also signed as the vice president of at least 20 other financial institutions, according to public records Szymoniak compiled. And Green's signatures all featured different handwriting, meaning they weren't just fabricated, but forged.
It was Szymoniak, based on weeks of public records searches, who wrote the first official fraud report to the US attorney's office in Jacksonville. She had several friends in that office, prosecutors she'd partnered with on insurance fraud cases. So she sent a complaint to Assistant US Attorney Mark Devereaux and FBI Special Agent Doug Matthews, who managed mortgage fraud cases. The result was the Jacksonville grand jury investigation.
Szymoniak filed her own whistleblower lawsuits detailing foreclosure fraud and eventually won $95 million for the government under the False Claims Act. For bringing the case to the government's attention, she received a share of that award, totaling $18 million.
The banks had foreclosed on exactly the wrong person.
According to dozens of interviews conducted by the FBI, DocX originally created lien releases, signifying when mortgages got paid off. But as the housing bubble collapsed and trustees suddenly needed evidence for their foreclosure cases, the business model shifted to pumping out mortgage assignments. Temporary and low-wage workers hired by DocX were now posing as bank vice presidents, working long hours signing documents at two long tables.
It used to be fun to work at DocX, one employee said in an FBI interview. Now it was more like a "sweat shop."
The documents coming out of DocX were sloppy at best. Several mortgage assignments were filed with courthouses that listed the recipient of the mortgage as "BOGUS ASSIGNEE." This was apparently a placeholder on a DocX template assignment that employees habitually forgot to change. At other times, employees appear to have forgotten to change the date, executing assignments effective "9/9/9999."
"When I joined the bureau, white-collar crime was the number one priority in the country." —David Gomez, former FBI agent
In the Jacksonville FBI files, DocX employees said that they were constantly pushed to process more documents. Eventually, the company hit on a concept called "surrogate signing." Only one individual was identified on corporate resolutions as the officer authorized to sign on clients' behalf, but under surrogate signing, other employees at DocX would sign for that authorized individual. Employees would sign as many as 2,100 documents per day, and each surrogate signer would double the workflow. In early 2009, DocX management hung a banner in the office proudly displaying its successful document production to superiors visiting from LPS.
Optionen
The employees don't appear to have ever seen any official documents authorizing them to sign on behalf of financial institutions where they did not actually work. Indeed, when the Jacksonville FBI office subpoenaed them, agents found that the "corporate resolutions do not give DocX/LPS employees the authority to sign on behalf of the institution."
But while many people working at DocX believed the scheme to be fraudulent, according to the memo, none of them questioned the practice for fear of losing their jobs. They were reassured repeatedly that everything was legitimate. Some managers apparently told employees to keep quiet for "the good of the company." Even the managers professed that they were trying to meet LPS demands and accomplish an impossible task of completing millions of mortgage assignments.
One manager stated in an FBI interview that if she "was guilty of anything, she was guilty of being ignorant."
LPS management in Jacksonville broke up the surrogate-signing party in November 2009, after a foreclosure defense attorney began questioning their practices. Executives at LPS fired Brown, founder and CEO of DocX, claiming she began surrogate signing without their knowledge. But DocX continued to sign on behalf of corporate officers at defunct companies for months afterward, according to the memo. And because the trusts had to receive mortgage assignments within 90 days of their establishment and not years later, the document production itself was fraudulent, the Jacksonville FBI alleged, whether the signatures were forged or not.
(LPS, now known as Black Knight Financial Services after a series of corporate mergers, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)
Between February and May 2010, Jacksonville FBI agents met with state and federal officials, including members of the SEC, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Florida's Department of Financial Services. They issued hundreds of subpoenas and prepared to seize more than $100 million in assets in the case. On May 17, they met with officials from the FBI's Economic Crimes Unit, which is responsible for overseeing financial fraud investigations in the field like Jacksonville's, to discuss the case and explain what they needed.
A week later, Jacksonville agents made the formal request for help to FBI headquarters in Washington.
"Jacksonville is a small field office with a White Collar Crime Squad of nine agents," the memo reads, explaining that six of the nine were committed to other cases. "In short, Jacksonville does not have the necessary resources to begin addressing this matter."
Jacksonville wanted the Economic Crimes Unit to activate the "Corporate Fly Team," a group of experienced agents with backgrounds in white-collar crime who travel to work on big cases. The extra bodies would help conduct interviews with officials at loan servicers, foreclosure law firms, trustees, and document custodians around the country. In addition, Jacksonville's office wanted an investigative team of 12 agents and two forensic accountants. Six agents and one forensic accountant would come from FBI headquarters, the Florida Department of Financial Services and the IRS would supply a few agents, and Jacksonville would provide the rest, including the second accountant. The agents from headquarters would have a 90-day "temporary duty" (TDY) assignment. After that, Jacksonville wanted to augment their "Funded Staffing Level" (FSL) with eight additional white-collar crime agents "to permanently address this matter." Jacksonville also wanted to rent an offsite facility for the storage and review of documents.
"It's a typical bureau request," retired FBI agent Timothy Crino told me. "You ask for everything you can possibly ask for and hope you get half of it."
And they did get about half, at least at first. The Criminal Investigative Division (CID)—the FBI's single biggest department—replied to the Jacksonville request on June 24. "If evidence collected shows intent to defraud investors by the real estate trusts, this matter has the potential to be a top ten Corporate Fraud case," the reply reads. CID agreed to pony up the Corporate Fraud Response Team for assistance with interviews, and offered two TDY Forensic Accountants for at least 90 days. They requested a detailed estimate for the off-site facility, and expressed a preference for obtaining records in digital format to reduce storage needs. But CID did not agree to the additional agents or FSL request "until a further evaluation of the case is completed."
Shuffling around resources and prioritizing investigations is always tricky and involves layers of FBI office politics. "The guy running the Jacksonville desk must sell it to the unit chief," said David Gomez, a retired FBI agent with the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University. "The unit chief is fighting with other unit chiefs to sell it to the section chief." And after 9/11, the FBI shifted attention to fighting terrorism, making the funds and bodies dedicated to financial crime even more scarce. "When I joined the bureau [in 1984], white-collar crime was the number one priority in the country," Gomez added. "Now people come in expecting and wanting to work on terrorism."
But proper resources can make or break a case. "If you don't get everything you want, you have to pick your battles," said former Agent Crino. "You can't work the whole thing, can't go after the biggest targets."
In this case, that would mean not going up the chain, from the companies like DocX that created the false mortgage assignments to the trustees and mortgage-servicing companies who were their clients. That chain could have implicated some of America's biggest and most powerful banks and bankers; the practice was systemic, as Jacksonville agents recognized. But a small FBI office can only do so much.
Before the end of the 90-day temporary agent assignment in Jacksonville, stories about foreclosure fraud began appearing in the news. "Robo-signers" who signed thousands of documents with no understanding of their contents were exposed through depositions placed on the internet. GMAC Mortgage, JPMorgan Chase, and eventually every major mortgage servicer in the country paused their foreclosure operations, because they were shown to be illegitimate.
The Jacksonville FBI office made a second request for resources on January 20, 2011. Agents said the local US attorney was considering indicting unidentified members of LPS for their role in the fraud, and also "identified Deutsche Bank as a subject trustee... who provided services in the conspiracy and made material misrepresentations to the SEC and the investing public." (Deutsche Bank spokesman Oksana Poltavets declined to comment on the case.) The FBI in Jacksonville also said the US attorney there had the commitment of the main Justice Department in Washington for the case going forward, bolstering the agents' contention that they needed more resources.
Agents in Jacksonville made a bevy of new asks, from additional use of the Corporate Fly Team to conduct interviews and review 3 million documents—produced by LPS after a subpoena—to help from other field offices for interviews in their own jurisdictions with homeowners evicted based on false documents. Finally, agents in Jacksonville wanted the Minneapolis FBI office to look into another LPS facility in Minnesota to see if employees had created false documents there, as well.
The FBI bosses in DC honored several of these requests. Fly Team members helped review the documents. Field offices pitched in on homeowner interviews. The investigation seemed to be making headway.
And then the trail went cold.
It is still difficult to pinpoint why, given that all the major players won't comment on the investigation. That includes the FBI's field office in Jacksonville, the FBI's Economic Crimes Unit in Washington, and the Justice Department. The last document in the FOIA file is dated June 28, 2012, describing planned travel from Jacksonville to Atlanta to interview "at least six" witnesses.
After that, there's nothing.
The grand summary of the investigation, which would typically be written up at the end, is not included in the FOIA documents. "It's just such a huge question mark," former FBI Agent Crino told me, "how this could have gone so horribly wrong."
The only person ultimately convicted in the Jacksonville case was Lorraine Brown, who was sentenced in June 2013 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The indictment claimed she directed the document forgery and fabrication scheme "unbeknownst to DocX's clients." In other words, according to prosecutors, mortgage servicers contracted Brown to provide evidence, so they could prove standing to foreclose, but didn't know the resulting evidence was faked.
But the Jacksonville FBI agents stated in their reports that any mortgage documents created after the closure of the trusts would have to have been fabricated. As recently as the January 20, 2011, request for resources, agents wrote, "When the notes were bundled, an assignment of mortgage should have been prepared and filed at the county court level... to ensure clear title in the event of sale and/or foreclosure." And they explained how and why the trusts failed to do so, necessitating the creation of documents after foreclosure had already begun.
So the charging documents in the Brown case positions the banks as unwitting dupes of the scheme, a reversal from the consistent determination by agents in the field that they were fully aware of and in fact responsible for the situation.
"I thought, Well, this is one friend saying to another friend: 'This is over,'"—Lynn Szymoniak
In the sentencing phase, the feds turned to county registers, the public officeholders who track and manage mortgage documents, to provide horror stories about DocX. One of them was John O'Brien, county register in Essex County, Massachusetts. He was determined to recoup $1.28 million from Brown to clean up falsified DocX land records filed with his office.
When Assistant US Attorney Mark Devereaux asked him to testify, however, O'Brien recalled the prosecutor insisting the judge wouldn't accept the claim, because registers—a.k.a. the public—were not victims.
"What do you mean, we're not a victim?" O'Brien exclaimed. "We're the ones with all these false documents!"
"No, the bank is the victim," Devereaux replied, according to O'Brien.
(The US Attorney's office in Jacksonville, where Devereaux still serves as a prosecutor, declined to comment on the case.)
Lynn Szymoniak, whose complaint triggered the Jacksonville FBI probe, believes that officials at the Justice Department, determined to stage-manage their own resolution to the scandal, stonewalled the agents on the case. She told me about one moment when she sensed the whole thing was rigged, sometime in the middle of 2011, well over a year after the investigation got underway.
Szymoniak had been unofficially assisting the Jacksonville team with research. US attorneys there would ask for 200 examples of a law firm signing mortgage assignments after they filed their foreclosure case, or 30 Linda Green documents in a certain region of the country. Szymoniak spent hours on these projects, feeling like she couldn't say no. But she wondered why the requests kept coming, even after she went public and appeared on 60 Minutes in April 2011, detailing the false document scheme. "I really thought that in response they would have to file [an indictment]," Szymoniak said. "When they decided to hold tight and it would go away, I realized I had no cards left to play."
At one point, the assistant US attorney requested a massive set of files. Szymoniak emailed her friend Henry "Tommy" Clark, a detective with the Florida Department of Financial Services' Division of Insurance Fraud, who also partnered with the FBI on cases. She complained to him that the file request was going to take her 14 hours to assemble. Clark called her within a few minutes and didn't even say hello.
"Don't waste your time," he said.
Clark worked with the Jacksonville FBI field office for a long time, and he saw the agents there as honorable people willing to follow the evidence wherever it led, Szymoniak recalled. So when Clark said, "I'm not working on it anymore, I've got a whole lot of other cases where I can file," he seemed to validate the eerie feeling she had about the case. Their shared recognition was that someone seemed to be preventing Jacksonville from completing the investigation, and the two knew each other well enough to broach that fear in just a few words.
"I thought, Well, this is one friend saying to another friend: 'This is over,'" she told me.
In a phone conversation, Detective Clark, who has since retired, confirmed that he worked on the FBI case but declined to comment for this story.
The FOIA documents detail an intense investigation in the aftermath of economic disaster, with Jacksonville agents and US attorneys going all-out for the public interest. They spent years running down leads and cultivating information, with the national office in Washington accommodating many of their resource requests. But all that work amounted solely to putting one non-banker in prison.
In February 2012, the Justice Department and 49 state attorneys general reached their civil settlement with the five biggest mortgage servicers over a host of allegations of deceptive and unlawful conduct, including "preparing, executing, notarizing, or presenting false and misleading documents... or otherwise using false or misleading documents as part of the foreclosure process." The feds boasted that the settlement was for $25 billion, but only $5 billion of that was in hard dollars, with the rest in credits for activities that included bulldozing homes and donating others to charity. Homeowners wrongfully foreclosed on received about $1,480. The Justice Department claimed it reserved the right to criminally prosecute anyone suspected of wrongdoing. That still hasn't happened.
After Brown's sentencing, Szymoniak called up one of the FBI investigators and thanked him for at least snagging the one conviction—for proving real crimes were committed by some of the most powerful economic players in America, crimes theoretically punishable with prison time.
There was a long pause.
According to Szymoniak, when the agent finally broke the silence, he said, "I don't think the taxpayers were very well served."
____________________
IMO...my conclusions as of September 07, 2019:
1) The Jacksonville, Florida FBI investigation needs to be re-opened by Attorney General William Barr
2) WMI subsidiaries were caught up in this fiasco
3) Defective chains of title are possibly as much as 40% of all securitized loans...which means that the ownership of those securitized loans lies with the last legal owner (WMI subsidiaries which were originators and/or depositors to the trustees) which had a properly conveyed step in the securitization process.
$692 billion securitized (from 2000-2008) x 40% = $276.8 billion potentially still owned by WMI subsidiaries
Optionen
https://www.ariva.de/forum/wmih-cooper-info-405067?page=21#jumppos542
MfG.L;)
Alles nur meine pers. Meinung, kein Kauf- oder Verkaufs-Empfehlung!
Optionen
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933136/...19-001956-index.htm
Gruß
DigiTig :-)
Optionen
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/933136/...01956/a52089891.htm
Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (the “Company”) has announced that Jay Bray, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Marshall, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, will present at the 2019 Barclays Global Financial Services Conference at 2:45 P.M. Eastern Time on Tuesday, September 10, 2019, in New York, New York. The Company intends to use the presentation furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to this Form 8-K at the conference and other investor meetings. The presentation discloses, among other things, that(i) during July and August 2019, Originations funded $7.7 billion in volumes, with Originations pretax margins greater than 1.0%, (ii) Servicing CPR averaged 17% during July and August 2019, (iii) Assurant Mortgage Solutions passed the break-even point in July 2019, (iv) the Company has notified the trustee of its intention to call $100 million of its 6.500% senior notes due 2021 for settlement in October 2019, and (v) the Company’s tangible net worth ratio, which is measured at the Company’s operating subsidiary, Nationstar Mortgage LLC (“Nationstar”), was 12.5% as of June 30, 2019.