FBR is a blown up, soon to be former REIT, that is either repositioning as a financial or liquidating. They talked last fall of pursuing strategic alternatives and have been selling off sub-prime and other assets, some profitably. They have big NOL carry-forwards that should be useful to somebody. Three weeks ago, they claimed to have tangible common equity of $0.82 per share. The stock (then $0.18-$0.20) has started to move up on increasing volume and may be a Dale-type special as is still only $0.33.
<<Subsequent to December 31, 2008 and through March 13, 2009, the Company continued its previously announced plan to downsize its mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolio and fund the extinguishment of its trust preferred debt at a significant discount. To date in the first quarter of 2009, the Company extinguished $201.7 million of trust preferred debt, recognizing a gain of $131.5 million. The Company intends to revoke its REIT status effective as of January 1, 2009 in order to maximize the use of its net operating loss, or NOL, carry-forwards.
After taking into consideration the extinguishment of the trust preferred debt and related MBS sales subsequent to year-end, the Company's consolidated tangible equity at year end would have been $124.6 million, or $0.82 per share. This includes the Company's proportionate share of the equity book value of FBR Capital Markets Corporation.
As of March 16, 2009, excluding its interest in FBR Capital Markets Corporation, the Company expects to have $17.8 million in cash as well as $37.1 million of MBS, including $27.3 million of agency fixed-rate MBS, $30.1 million of total MBS repo financing and $50.0 million of trust preferred debt. The Company also had $6.3 million of merchant banking and other long-term investments and no remaining subprime exposure. The Company's remaining NOL and NCL, net capital loss, carry-forwards equaled $259.6 million and $597.4 million, respectively.>> |
