It was as certain as day follows night. Investors start to lose mony on subprime-backed investment bonds. Then the lawyers turn up. It will soon be bubbletime for law suits, as investors try to shift the blame onto the investment backs. Credit Suisse are the first bank to suffer the legal wrath of angry investors. However, they won't be the last.
You can just imagine the shock when investors woke up to the subprime collapse. "What, you didn't tell us that we could lose money on real estate". Yes, you can lose on real estate. That is the great lesson of 2007.
Let's repeat that; Yes, you can lose money on real estate.
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group was sued by a Florida insurer that says it lost money on investment-grade bonds backed by subprime mortgages sold by the bank.
The suit, filed in Florida by Bankers Life Insurance Co., is ``one of three to five in the pipeline'' involving securitizations by Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, said Dale Ledbetter of Ledbetter & Associates P.A., one of two law firms representing the Bankers Financial Corp. unit.
"We suspect that once people understand what occurred here, there's going to be a lot more," Ledbetter said. A total of $302.6 million of bonds were originally issued in the deal.
Bankers Life, based in St. Petersburg, is seeking to recover about $1.3 million to make up for losses of principal, interest and market value on about $1.4 million of the 2001 bonds it bought in 2004, Ledbetter said. Other investors considering suits will probably seek between $500,000 and $3 million each, he said.
You can just imagine the shock when investors woke up to the subprime collapse. "What, you didn't tell us that we could lose money on real estate". Yes, you can lose on real estate. That is the great lesson of 2007.
Let's repeat that; Yes, you can lose money on real estate.
April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group was sued by a Florida insurer that says it lost money on investment-grade bonds backed by subprime mortgages sold by the bank.
The suit, filed in Florida by Bankers Life Insurance Co., is ``one of three to five in the pipeline'' involving securitizations by Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, said Dale Ledbetter of Ledbetter & Associates P.A., one of two law firms representing the Bankers Financial Corp. unit.
"We suspect that once people understand what occurred here, there's going to be a lot more," Ledbetter said. A total of $302.6 million of bonds were originally issued in the deal.
Bankers Life, based in St. Petersburg, is seeking to recover about $1.3 million to make up for losses of principal, interest and market value on about $1.4 million of the 2001 bonds it bought in 2004, Ledbetter said. Other investors considering suits will probably seek between $500,000 and $3 million each, he said.
As far as I understand it, CS are being sued along with the loan originator and the broker. And the allegations against CS relate to secondary stuff - misinformation in packaging the bond, lumping loans together inappropriately, and (hard to understand this) not pursuing defaults or insurance claims. It's not to do with the loans themselves.
ReplyDeletePlaintiff has demanded a jury trial, but even so CS has a good chance of winning on the fine print - unless they managed the thing with incredible sloppiness.
Are they named as defendant in the hope of a face-saving settlement? Or will CS hold out in the expectation that the originating bank's insurer will carry the can?
Anyway, this bond was issued in 2004 - before subprime really took off. Much much more to come.