Ellington Wins New Century's Loans With a $58 Million Bid in Auction
>>>Hmmm. Let me see. How can I put this:
1) Immodium is to the human gastro-intestinal tract as subprime loans are to Ellington Capital....one hit of that stuff and you will be stopped up for months,
2) Memo to Michael: There was a reason that New Century was in bankruptcy,
3) After the LTCM meltdown in '98, how in the hell do you still have a job,
4) After the LTCM meltdown in '98, who in the hell would allow you to invest for them,
5) Don't tell me you hired S&P to evaluate New Centrury's portfolio before making a bid,
6) I write great risk management software. Call me.<<<
By PEG BRICKLEY
May 4, 2007
Hedge-fund operator Ellington Management Group LLC bid $58 million to win an auction of home-mortgage loans and related securities from New Century Financial Corp., according to people familiar with the situation.
New Century, one of the biggest subprime mortgage lenders until last year, filed for bankruptcy-court protection a month ago and is liquidating to pay creditors.
The Irvine, Calif., company couldn't find a buyer for its core loan-origination business and is laying off 2,000 employees as a result, a spokesman said.
Ellington, a specialist in trading mortgage securities and based in Old Greenwich, Conn., is headed by Michael Vranos, a former mortgage bond-trading chief at Kidder Peabody & Co., a Wall Street securities firm that collapsed in 1994. Ellington officials didn't respond to requests for comment.
Assets on the block yesterday included a portfolio of mortgage loans with a face value of $170 million and rights to receive streams of payment from some loans New Century sold off in past deals. The loan auction's results is to be presented to a bankruptcy judge in Delaware for approval Monday.
Still to come is the largest auction of the bankruptcy case: the sale of the loan-servicing operation. Carrington Capital Management has agreed to start that auction with an offer New Century values at $131.9 million.
There are still plans to sell software, technology and other assets used to run the loan-origination platform, even if no offer for the business itself emerges, said Mark T. Power, of New York's Hahn & Hessen, an attorney for the official committee of unsecured creditors in New Century's Chapter 11 case. |
