Golden Turkey Awards

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Dow at 16,000, government up and running and the first Single-Family Rental deal now safely in investors’ hands – we are in pretty good shape. As is our tradition here at Crunchedcredit.com, we present to you our nod to the stories and happenings that struck us as amusing or important. (Or both). (Or neither).Continue Reading CrunchedCredit.com’s 4th Annual Golden Turkey Awards

With Thanksgiving approaching and the holiday season in full swing, we here at Crunched Credit would like to present our annual “Golden Turkeys”.

The Golden Turkey for the Most Confounding Regulation: The Premium Capture Reserve Account

Back in March, the credit risk retention NPR was released. Perhaps the most unexpected (and unwelcomed) part of the rule was the Premium Capture Cash Reserve Account (PCCRA).  The PCCRA provisions actually say that issuers may not profit from securitizations or recoup costs up front. The NPR says that a securitizer who monetizes either an IO or earns a premium on the sale of P&I bonds has to put that money aside to serve as a first loss reserve for any losses on the mortgage loans for the life of the deal–on top of the 5% risk retention requirement. Neither a PCCRA nor a reasonable facsimile thereof was contemplated in the Dodd-Frank Act. Needless to say, PCCRA has generally not gone over very well: Confound it!!

The Golden Turkey for the Best Self-Inflicted Wound: The “Bad Boys”

And by “bad boys”, we mean those who have violated the “bad boy” recourse carve-outs in their loan documents. Although most commercial real estate loans are non-recourse (i.e. the lender can only look to the value of the property securing the loan to settle the borrower’s obligations if there is a default under the loan), most contain certain “bad boy” carve-outs (for example, the borrower filing for bankruptcy or misappropriating funds) from the non-recourse nature of the loan, permitting the lender, in certain circumstances, to look to the borrower (as well as the guarantor) to satisfy the borrower’s obligations. Some borrowers, victims of the great recession, have opted to file for bankruptcy in an attempt to stop the bleeding and dam the "bad boys". Oops. Lenders confronted by misbehaving borrowers have enforced the “bad boy” provisions, and, shockingly, the lenders have been successful! The New York Supreme Court has, on 2 separate occasions in March and July, upheld the “bad boy” provisions. While putting the borrower into bankruptcy may seem like a good solution, if doing so will violate the “bad boy” recourse provisions, it will make a bad situation worse.Continue Reading COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE 2011 RECAP: AND THE (ANNUAL) GOLDEN TURKEY AWARD GOES TO….

 With Thanksgiving upon us and the holiday season in full swing, we here at CrunchedCredit.com would like to present our “Golden Turkeys”, noting certain special contributions to the ongoing resurrection of the Commercial Real Estate Finance industry.

The Golden Turkey for the Best Self-Inflicted Wound: FASB

Hands down, this goes to the Financial Accounting Standards Board. We don’t know whether to give top honors to FAS 166 and 167 dealing with the transfer of financial assets or the new Fair Value Accounting Rules. But in any event, in a series of changes which certainly must have made more sense to academic accounting communities and to the financial markets and investors for which these little regulatory gems were designed, for reasons which remain curious even now, they’ve imported enormous financial volatility and burdened the balance sheets of financial institutions with assets they don’t own and liabilities for which they have no contractual liability in the middle of the greatest financial correction in modern memory. At least we changed the rules of the game, we drop a giant pro-cyclical engine into the balance sheet, stir in a little FinReg, and, Viola! — chaos. We could have hoped someone with regulatory gravitas could have stood up and said, "What are you thinkin’?" And now for a second heaping of goodness, FASB is considering expanding Fair Value to all financial assets, which will produce even more volatility onto the balance sheets of financial institutions. Oh, and have we mentioned Lease Accounting? If FASB has their way, all leases will be treated as capital leases. we can’t even begin to tell you how bad that is. FASB, the winner in this category, hands down.

The Golden Turkey Award for Best Regulatory Knifefight: FDIC

This award goes to the FDIC. This late, lamented Congress began spinning the tale that the absence of skin in the game caused the capital meltdown over the past three years, and, in large measure, through sheer undisputed resolution, it has become received wisdom. (There must be a Golden Turkey for that itself, isn’t there?) So the SEC begins a regulatory initiative to impose skin in the game requirements for use of a shelf in a publicly registered transaction. Good enough, and then the Congressional locomotive comes through and skin in the game becomes a part of Dodd-Frank. Under Dodd-Frank, all the relevant banking regulatory agencies and the SEC are directed to engage in joint rulemaking on skin in the game. In the middle of all this, the FDIC publishes its new securitization Safe Harbor, which contains a completely freestanding and independent skin in the game provision. Oh, sure, the Reg which is in final form is applicable as of January 1, 2011, has an auto-conform provision that the Dodd-Frank skin in the game provisions won’t be law for two years, so we have, irrespective of the FDIC imposing its own set of conflicts rules on a certain sector of the securitization market, face a specific direction to engage in joint rulemaking. What the banking regulatory community thinks about this one can make the other members of the bank regulatory community and the Federal Reserve think about this one can only imagine. We suspect the SEC might be a bit pouty too.Continue Reading Commercial Real Estate 2010 Recap: And the Golden Turkey Award Goes To…