Comments on: Ambac HIgher Priority of Dinallo’s Rescue Effort; Progress Claimed

By: eh

eh — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:06:00 +0000

Ambac HIgher Priority of Dinallo's Resuce Effort; Progress Claimed

Rescue.

I listened to the interview mentioned -- it is available on-line.

By: stuart

stuart — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:43:00 +0000

This is simply a variation of the failed M-LEC Super SIV scam model in its design and intent. Get together the most needy participants, have them self fund a cash pool in order to inject capital into a market where none currently exists, and provide a self-funded prop with themselves as the primary beneficiaries. ?? what the??

Hmm... lets see. Parent company sets up 100% owned subsidiary company. Subsidary company sells goods to parent company. Subsidiary records transaction as revenues. Parent company records great consolidated revenues.

C'mon people, see this for what it is.

By: Yves Smith

Yves Smith — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:30:00 +0000

rk and reality-based lawyer,

That is an unbelievable bit of information. One can only presume that the logic was that they were seeing a profit squeeze in the muni guarantee business, but nevertheless, this has to rate as one of the worst bits of advice in financial history. And it wasn’t even advice, since the rating agencies held the whip hand.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:37:00 +0000

Moody’s Investors Service cut credit ratings of XL Capital Ltd.’s insurance subsidiaries, partly because of the company’s connection with fifth-largest bond insurer Security Capital Assurance Ltd., whose credit rating is on watch for downgrade.

Moody’s downgraded ratings of XL’s insurance units, including XL Insurance (Bermuda) Ltd. and XL Re Ltd., one notch to A1 from Aa3. It also cut XL Capital’s senior debt rating Baa1 from A3. The outlook on the ratings is now stable.

By: realty-based lawyer

realty-based lawyer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:27:00 +0000

Not hearsay – it happened in Oct/Nov 2005 or thereabouts. The prospective entrant was a financial guarantor being established by DEPFA, an Irish bank with German links that was recently acquired by Hypo Real Estate. CEO was Michael Freed.

By: RK

RK — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:18:00 +0000

There was an interesting interview today on CNBC with one of the principals of Egan Jones, the private ratings firm. Gasparino was on as well and made an interesting point. He said that S & P and Moodys were telling the municipal insurers for the last several years that they NEEDED to get into the structured finance business, to MAINTAIN their AAA rating, and that a prospective entrant into the business was told that to GET a AAA they would need to participate. While this is so far only heresay, Gasparino has done some good reporting
in the past based on apparently good connections.