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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Madharry who wrote (29842)	1/24/2008 4:13:02 PM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78758

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Sean Dilweg believes Ambac Financial Group Inc. (ABK) to be "strong and well-capitalized," and believes that the troubled municipal bond insurer will be able to attract capital. "Ambec, when you look at their financials, they're strong, they're well capitalized, they have a strong municipal bond market," said Dilweg in an interview with CNBC. "I'm comfortable that there will be capital attracted to the plan they put together," Dilweg said. The Wisconsin insurance commissioner is working to attract capital to the company after complex securities guaranteed by the bond insurer plummeted in value amid the credit market turmoil. He would not comment on where capital might come from, but stated that Ambac "is a strong financial company; it has some challenges ahead of it, but as an insurance regulator we come at it from protecting the policy-holders," said Dilweg. Stocks of bond insurers were down Thursday, a day after Ambac, which was cut to double-A by Fitch Ratings and is on watch by the other two ratings agencies, saw its shares soar 72%. Thursday afternoon, the shares are down by 17%. Bond insurers such as Ambac and MBIA Inc. (MBI) guarantee about $2.4 trillion in outstanding debt, and the loss of their top-notch ratings means a repricing of insured debt and a chilling effect on the industry. - Jerry A. DiColo; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2007; jerry.dicolo@dowjones.com (END) Dow Jones Newswires 01-24-08 1603ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Dow Jones Back to Stock Summary Data Source Identificat